any giving the time in
Gaelic boat-songs. And what with the songs, and the sea-air, and the
good-nature and spirit of all concerned, and the bright weather, the
passage was a pretty thing to have seen.

But there was one melancholy part. In the mouth of Loch Aline we found
a great sea-going ship at anchor; and this I supposed at first to be one
of the King's cruisers which were kept along that coast, both summer
and winter, to prevent communication with the French. As we got a little
nearer, it became plain she was a ship of merchandise; and what still
more puzzled me, not only her decks, but the sea-beach also, were quite
black with people, and skiffs were continually plying to and fro between
them. Yet nearer, and there began to come to our ears a great sound
of mourning, the people on board and those on the shore crying and
lamenting one to another so as to pierce the heart.

Then I understood this was an emigrant ship bound for the American
colonies.

We put the ferry-boat alongside, and the exiles leaned over the
bulwarks, weeping and reaching out their hands to my fellow-passengers,
among whom they counted some near friends. How long this might have gone
on I do not know, for they seemed to have no sense of time: but at last
the captain of the ship, who seemed near beside himself (and no great
wonder) in the midst of this crying and confusion, came to the side and
begged us to depart.

Thereupon Neil sheered off; and the chief singer in our boat struck into
a melancholy air, which was presently taken up both by the emigrants and
their friends upon the beach, so that it sounded from all sides like a
lament for the dying. I saw the tears run down the cheeks of the men and
women in the boat, even as they bent at the oars; and the circumstances
and the music of the song (which is one called "Lochaber no more") were
highly affecting even to myself.

At Kinlochaline I got Neil Roy upon one side on the beach, and said I
made sure he was one of Appin's men.

"And what for no?" said he.

"I am seeking somebody," said I; "and it comes in my mind that you will
have news of him. Alan Breck Stewart is his name." And very foolishly,
instead of showing him the button, I sought to pass a shilling in his
hand.

At this he drew back. "I am very much affronted," he said; "and this is
not the way that one shentleman should behave to another at all. The man
you ask for is in France; but if he was in my sporran," says he, "an