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CHAPTER XII

ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN

It was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was down; a
strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in suddenly
from the west; and we began our movement in as black a night as ever a
fugitive or a murderer wanted. The whiteness of the path guided us into
the sleeping town of Broughton, thence through Picardy, and beside my
old acquaintance the gibbet of the two thieves. A little beyond we made
a useful beacon, which was a light in an upper window of Lochend.
Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and with some trampling of
the harvest, and stumbling and falling down upon the banks, we made our
way across country, and won forth at last upon the linky, boggy muirland
that they call the Figgate Whins. Here, under a bush of whin, we lay
down the remainder of that night and slumbered.

The day called us about five. A beautiful morning it was, the high
westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away to
Europe. Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself. It was my
first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked upon him
with enjoyment. He had still the same big great-coat on his back; but
(what was new) he had now a pair of knitted boot-hose drawn above the
knee. Doubtless these were intended for disguise; but, as the day
promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable figure.

"Well, Davie," said he, "is this no a bonny morning? Here is a day that
looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from the
belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and sleeping I
have done a thing that maybe I do over seldom."

"And what was that?" said I.

"O, just said my prayers," said he.

"And where are my gentry, as ye call them?" I asked.

"Gude kens," says he; "and the short and the long of it is that we must
take our chance of them. Up with your foot-soles, Davie! Forth, Fortune,
once again of it! And a bonny walk we are like to have."

So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans
were smoking in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary bonny
blink of morning sun on Arthur's Seat and the green Pentlands; and the
pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.

"I feel like a gomeral," says he, "to be leaving Scotland on a day like
this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here
and hing."