led. Well, it'll be tried in Inverara, the Campbells' head place;
with fifteen Campbells in the jury-box, and the biggest Campbell of all
(and that's the Duke) sitting cocking on the bench. Justice, David? The
same justice, by all the world, as Glenure found a while ago at the
road-side."

This frighted me a little, I confess, and would have frighted me more
if I had known how nearly exact were Alan's predictions; indeed, it was
but in one point that he exaggerated, there being but eleven Campbells
on the jury; though as the other four were equally in the Duke's
dependence, it mattered less than might appear. Still, I cried out that
he was unjust to the Duke of Argyle, who (for all he was a Whig) was yet
a wise and honest nobleman.

"Hoot!" said Alan, "the man's a Whig, nae doubt; but I would never deny
he was a good chieftain to his clan. And what would the clan think if
there was a Campbell shot, and naebody hanged, and their own chief the
Justice-General? But I have often observed," says Alan, "that you
Low-country bodies have no clear idea of what's right and wrong."

At this I did at last laugh out aloud; when to my surprise, Alan joined
in, and laughed as merrily as myself.

"Na, na," said he, "we're in the Hielands, David; and when I tell ye to
run, take my word and run. Nae doubt it's a hard thing to skulk and
starve in the heather, but it's harder yet to lie shackled in a red-coat
prison."

I asked him whither we should flee; and as he told me "to the Lowlands,"
I was a little better inclined to go with him; for, indeed, I was
growing impatient to get back and have the upper hand of my uncle.
Besides, Alan made so sure there would be no question of justice in the
matter, that I began to be afraid he might be right. Of all deaths, I
would truly like least to die by the gallows; and the picture of that
uncanny instrument came into my head with extraordinary clearness (as I
had once seen it engraved at the top of a pedlar's ballad) and took away
my appetite for courts of justice.

"I'll chance it, Alan," said I. "I'll go with you."

"But mind you," said Alan, "it's no small thing. Ye maun lie bare and
hard, and brook many an empty belly. Your bed shall be the muircock's,
and your life shall be like the hunted deer's, and ye shall sleep with
your hand upon your weapons. Ay, man, ye shall taigle many a weary foot,
or we get clear! I tell ye this at the start, for it's a life that I
ken well. But if ye ask wh