, we have but three shillings left in this wide world; and where to
go, and how to do, and what other place there is for us except the
chains of a gibbet--I give you my naked word, I kenna! Shall we go
wanting, lassie? Are ye to lie in your warm bed and think upon us, when
the wind gowls in the chimney and the rain tirls on the roof? Are ye to
eat your meat by the cheeks of a red fire, and think upon this poor sick
lad of mine, biting his finger-ends on a blae muir for cauld and hunger?
Sick or sound, he must aye be moving; with the death-grapple at his
throat he must aye be trailing in the rain on the lang roads; and when
he gants his last on a rickle of cauld stanes, there will be nae friends
near him but only me and God."

At this appeal I could see the lass was in great trouble of mind, being
tempted to help us, and yet in some fear she might be helping
malefactors; and so now I determined to step in myself and to allay her
scruples with a portion of the truth.

"Did ever you hear," said I, "of Mr. Rankeillor of the Ferry?"

"Rankeillor the writer?" said she. "I daursay that!"

"Well," said I, "it's to his door that I am bound, so you may judge by
that if I am an ill-doer; and I will tell you more, that though I am
indeed, by a dreadful error, in some peril of my life, King George has
no truer friend in all Scotland than myself."

Her face cleared up mightily at this, although Alan's darkened.

"That's more than I would ask," said she. "Mr. Rankeillor is a kennt
man." And she bade us finish our meat, get clear of the clachan as soon
as might be, and lie close in the bit wood on the sea beach. "And ye can
trust me," says she, "I'll find some means to put you over."

At this we waited for no more, but shook hands with her upon the
bargain, made short work of the puddings, and set forth again from
Limekilns as far as to the wood. It was a small piece of perhaps a score
of elders and hawthorns and a few young ashes, not thick enough to veil
us from passers-by upon the road or beach. Here we must lie, however,
making the best of the brave warm weather and the good hopes we now had
of a deliverance, and planning more particularly what remained for us to
do.

We had but one trouble all day; when a strolling piper came and sat in
the same wood with us; a red-nosed, blear-eyed, drunken dog, with a
great bottle of whisky in his pocket, and a long story of wrongs that
had been done him by all sorts of persons, from the