* Brisk.

At this I suppose I coloured with mortification, for he added at once, “Hoots! small blame to ye!  To be feared of a thing and yet to do it, is what makes the prettiest kind of a man.  And then there was water there, and water’s a thing that dauntons even me.  No, no,” said Alan, “it’s no you that’s to blame, it’s me.”

I asked him why.

“Why,” said he, “I have proved myself a gomeral this night.  For first of all I take a wrong road, and that in my own country of Appin; so that the day has caught us where we should never have been; and thanks to that, we lie here in some danger and mair discomfort.  And next (which is the worst of the two, for a man that has been so much among the heather as myself) I have come wanting a water-bottle, and here we lie for a long summer’s day with naething but neat spirit.  Ye may think that a small matter; but before it comes night, David, ye’ll give me news of it.”

I was anxious to redeem my character, and offered, if he would pour out the brandy, to run down and fill the bottle at the river.

“I wouldnae waste the good spirit either,” says he.  “It’s been a good friend to you this night; or in my poor opinion, ye would still be cocking on yon stone.  And what’s mair,” says he, “ye may have observed (you that’s a man of so much penetration) that Alan Breck Stewart was perhaps walking quicker than his ordinar’.”

“You!” I cried, “you were running fit to burst.”

“Was I so?” said he.  “Well, then, ye may depend upon it, there was nae time to be lost.  And now here is enough said; gang you to your sleep, lad, and I’ll watch.”

Accordingly, I lay down to sleep; a little peaty earth had drifted in between the top of the two rocks, and some bracken grew there, to be a bed to me; the last thing I heard was still the crying of the eagles.

I dare say it would be nine in the morning when I was roughly awakened, and found Alan’s hand pressed upon my mouth.

“Wheesht!” he whispered.  “Ye were snoring.”

“Well,” said I, surprised at his anxious and dark face, “and why not?”

He peered over the edge of the rock, and signed to me to do the like.

It was now high day, cloudless, and very hot.  The valley was as clear as in a picture.  About half a mile up the water was a camp of red-coats; a big fire blazed in their midst, at which some were cooking; and near by, on the top of a rock about as high as ours, there stood a sentry, with the sun sparkling on his arms.  All the way down along the river-side were posted other sentries; here near together, there widelier scattered; some planted like the first, on places of command, some on the ground level and marching and counter-marching, so as to meet half-way.  Higher up the glen, where the ground was more open, the chain of posts was continued by horse-soldiers, whom we could see in the distance riding to and fro.  Lower down, the infantry continued; but as the stream was suddenly swelled by the confluence of a considerable burn, they were more widely set, and only watched the fords and stepping-stones.