"Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan," said I.

"No but what France is a good place too," he explained; "but it's some
way no the same. It's brawer, I believe, but it's no Scotland. I like it
fine when I'm there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the
Scots peat-reek."

"If that's all you have to complain of, Alan, it's no such great
affair," said I.

"And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever," said he, "and me but
new out of yon de'il's haystack."

"And so you were unco' weary of your haystack?" I asked.

"Weary's nae word for it," said he. "I'm not just precisely a man that's
easily cast down; but I do better with caller air and the lift above my
head. I'm like the auld Black Douglas (wasnae't?) that likit better to
hear the laverock sing than the mouse cheep. And yon place, ye see,
Davie--whilk was a very suitable place to hide in, as I'm free to
own--was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming. There were days (or nights, for
how would I tell one from other?) that seemed to me as long as a long
winter."

"How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?" I asked.

"The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-dowp to
eat it by, about eleeven," said he. "So, when I had swallowed a bit, it
would be time to be getting to the wood. There I lay and wearied for ye
sore, Davie," says he, laying his hand on my shoulder, "and guessed when
the two hours would be about by--unless Charlie Stewart would come and
tell me on his watch--and then back to the dooms haystack. Na, it was a
driech employ, and praise the Lord that I have warstled through with
it!"

"What did you do with yourself?" I asked.

"Faith," said he, "the best I could! Whiles I played at the
knucklebones. I'm an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones, but
it's a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire ye. And
whiles I would make songs."

"What were they about?" says I.

"O, about the deer and the heather," says he, "and about the ancient old
chiefs that are all by with it long syne, and just about what songs are
about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of
pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I
played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of
them! But the great affair is that it's done with."

With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over
again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing at
inter