other, it would be the best for both of us."

"Well, then, east, ye see, we have the muirs," said Alan. "Once there,
David, it's mere pitch-and-toss. Out on yon bald, naked, flat place,
where can a body turn to? Let the red-coats come over a hill, they can
spy you miles away; and, the sorrow's in their horses' heels, they would
soon ride you down. It's no good place, David; and I'm free to say, it's
worse by daylight than by dark."

"Alan," said I, "hear my way of it. Appin's death for us; we have none
too much money, nor yet meal; the longer they seek, the nearer they may
guess where we are; it's all a risk; and I give my word to go ahead
until we drop."

Alan was delighted. "There are whiles," said he, "when ye are altogether
too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me; but there
come other whiles when ye show yersel' a mettle spark; and it's then,
David, that I love ye like a brother."

The mist rose and died away, and showed us that country lying as waste
as the sea; only the moorfowl and the peewees crying upon it, and far
over to the east, a herd of deer, moving like dots. Much of it was red
with heather; much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags and peaty
pools; some had been burnt black in a heath-fire; and in another place
there was quite a forest of dead firs, standing like skeletons. A
wearier-looking desert man never saw; but at least it was clear of
troops, which was our point.

We went down accordingly into the waste, and began to make our toilsome
and devious travel towards the eastern verge. There were the tops of
mountains all round (you are to remember) from whence we might be spied
at any moment; so it behoved us to keep in the hollow parts of the moor,
and, when these turned aside from our direction, to move upon its naked
face with infinite care. Sometimes, for half an hour together, we must
crawl from one heather bush to another, as hunters do when they are hard
upon the deer. It was a clear day again, with a blazing sun; the water
in the brandy-bottle was soon gone; and altogether, if I had guessed
what it would be to crawl half the time upon my belly and to walk much
of the rest stooping nearly to the knees, I should certainly have held
back from such a killing enterprise.

Toiling and resting and toiling again, we wore away the morning; and
about noon lay down in a thick bush of heather to sleep. Alan took the
first watch; and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my ey