y journey.

They now again entered the gorge of the cavern, and stepping into the
boat, the Highlander pushed off, and, taking advantage of the morning
breeze, hoisted a clumsy sort of sail, while Evan assumed the helm,
directing their course, as it appeared to Waverley, rather higher up the
lake than towards the place of his embarkation on the preceding night. As
they glided along the silver mirror, Evan opened the conversation with a
panegyric upon Alice, who, he said, was both CANNY and FENDY; and was, to
the boot of all that, the best dancer of a strathspey in the whole
strath. Edward assented to her praises so far as he understood them, yet
could not help regretting that she was condemned to such a perilous and
dismal life.

'Oich! for that,' said Evan, 'there is nothing in Perthshire that she
need want, if she ask her father to fetch it, unless it be too hot or too
heavy.'

'But to be the daughter of a cattle-stealer--a common thief!' 'Common
thief!--no such thing: Donald Bean Lean never LIFTED less than a drove in
his life.'

'Do you call him an uncommon thief, then?'

'No; he that steals a cow from a poor widow, or a stirk from a cotter, is
a thief; he that lifts a drove from a Sassenach laird is a
gentleman-drover. And, besides, to take a tree from the forest, a salmon
from the river, a deer from the hill, or a cow from a Lowland strath, is
what no Highlander need ever think shame upon.'

'But what can this end in, were he taken in such an appropriation?'

'To be sure he would DIE FOR THE LAW, as many a pretty man has done
before him.'

'Die for the law!'

'Ay; that is, with the law, or by the law; be strapped up on the KIND
gallows of Crieff, [Footnote: See Note 16.] where his father died, and
his goodsire died, and where I hope he'll live to die himsell, if he's
not shot, or slashed, in a creagh.'

'You HOPE such a death for your friend, Evan?'

'And that do I e'en; would you have me wish him to die on a bundle of wet
straw in yon den of his, like a mangy tyke?'

'But what becomes of Alice, then?'

'Troth, if such an accident were to happen, as her father would not need
her help ony langer, I ken nought to hinder me to marry her mysell.'

'Gallantly resolved,' said Edward; 'but, in the meanwhile, Evan, what has
your father-in-law (that shall be, if he have the good fortune to be
hanged) done with the Baron's cattle?'

'Oich,' answered Evan,'they were all trudging before your lad and Allan