of 'Hey, Johnnie lad, cock up your beaver.' I ran over the words, and
fixed on the following stanza, as most applicable to my circumstances:--

Cock up your beaver, and cock it fu' sprush;
We'll over the Border and give them a brush;
There's somebody there we'll teach better behaviour,
Hey, Johnnie lad, cock up your beaver.

If these sounds alluded, as I hope they do, to the chance of assistance
from my Scottish friends, I may indeed consider that a door is open to
hope and freedom. I immediately replied with:--

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands! farewell to the North!
The birth-place of valour, the cradle of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Willie instantly played, with a degree of spirit which might have
awakened hope in Despair herself, if Despair could be supposed to
understand Scotch music, the fine old Jacobite air,

For a' that, and a' that,
And twice as much as a' that.

I next endeavoured to intimate my wish to send notice of my condition to
my friends; and, despairing to find an air sufficiently expressive of my
purpose, I ventured to sing a verse, which, in various forms, occurs so
frequently in old ballads--

Whare will I get a bonny boy
That will win hose and shoon:
That will gae down to Durisdeer,
And bid my merry men come?

He drowned the latter part of the verse by playing, with much emphasis,

Kind Robin loes me.

Of this, though I ran over the verses of the song in my mind, I could
make nothing; and before I could contrive any mode of intimating my
uncertainty, a cry arose in the courtyard that Cristal Nixon was coming.
My faithful Willie was obliged to retreat; but not before he had half
played, half hummed, by way of farewell,

Leave thee--leave thee, lad--
I'll never leave thee;
The stars shall gae withershins
Ere I will leave thee.

I am thus, I think, secure of one trusty adherent in my misfortunes;
and, however whimsical it may be to rely much on a man of his idle
profession and deprived of sight withal, it is deeply impressed on
my mind that his services may be both useful and necessary. There
is another quarter from which I look for succour, and which I have
indicated to thee, Alan, in more