down flat in the
heather, and turned to me.

"Now," said he, "it's earnest. Do as I do, for your life."

At the same speed, but now with infinitely more precaution, we traced
back again across the mountain side by the same way that we had come,
only perhaps higher; till at last Alan threw himself down in the upper
wood of Lettermore, where I had found him at the first, and lay, with
his face in the bracken, panting like a dog.

My own sides so ached, my head so swam, my tongue so hung out of my
mouth with heat and dryness, that I lay beside him like one dead.

FOOTNOTE:

[18] Duck.

CHAPTER XVIII

I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE

Alan was the first to come round. He rose, went to the border of the
wood, peered out a little, and then returned and sat down.

"Well," said he, "yon was a hot burst, David."

I said nothing, nor so much as lifted my face. I had seen murder done,
and a great, ruddy, jovial gentleman struck out of life in a moment; the
pity of that sight was still sore within me, and yet that was but a part
of my concern. Here was murder done upon the man Alan hated; here was
Alan skulking in the trees and running from the troops; and whether his
was the hand that fired or only the head that ordered, signified but
little. By my way of it, my only friend in that wild country was
blood-guilty in the first degree; I held him in horror; I could not look
upon his face; I would have rather lain alone in the rain on my cold
isle, than in that warm wood beside a murderer.

"Are ye still wearied?" he asked again.

"No," said I, still with my face in the bracken; "no, I am not wearied
now, and I can speak. You and me must twine,"[19] I said. "I liked you
very well, Alan, but your ways are not mine, and they're not God's: and
the short and the long of it is just that we must twine."

"I will hardly twine from ye, David, without some kind of reason for the
same," said Alan, mighty gravely. "If ye ken anything against my
reputation, it's the least thing that ye should do, for old
acquaintance' sake, to let me hear the name of it: and if ye have only
taken a distaste to my society, it will be proper for me to judge if
I'm insulted."

"Alan," said I, "what is the sense of this? Ye ken very well yon
Campbell man lies in his blood upon the road."

He was silent for a little; then says he, "Did ever ye hear tell of the
story of the Man and the Good People?"--by which he meant the fairies