mouth with heat and dryness, that I lay beside him like one dead.

CHAPTER XVIII

I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE

Alan was the first to come round. He rose, went to the border of the
wood, peered out a little, and then returned and sat down.

"Well," said he, "yon was a hot burst, David."

I said nothing, nor so much as lifted my face. I had seen murder done,
and a great, ruddy, jovial gentleman struck out of life in a moment; the
pity of that sight was still sore within me, and yet that was but a part
of my concern. Here was murder done upon the man Alan hated; here was
Alan skulking in the trees and running from the troops; and whether his
was the hand that fired or only the head that ordered, signified
but little. By my way of it, my only friend in that wild country was
blood-guilty in the first degree; I held him in horror; I could not look
upon his face; I would have rather lain alone in the rain on my cold
isle, than in that warm wood beside a murderer.

"Are ye still wearied?" he asked again.

"No," said I, still with my face in the bracken; "no, I am not wearied
now, and I can speak. You and me must twine,"* I said. "I liked you very
well, Alan, but your ways are not mine, and they're not God's: and the
short and the long of it is just that we must twine."

* Part.

"I will hardly twine from ye, David, without some kind of reason for
the same," said Alan, mighty gravely. "If ye ken anything against
my reputation, it's the least thing that ye should do, for old
acquaintance' sake, to let me hear the name of it; and if ye have only
taken a distaste to my society, it will be proper for me to judge if I'm
insulted."

"Alan," said I, "what is the sense of this? Ye ken very well yon
Campbell-man lies in his blood upon the road."

He was silent for a little; then says he, "Did ever ye hear tell of the
story of the Man and the Good People?"--by which he meant the fairies.

"No," said I, "nor do I want to hear it."

"With your permission, Mr. Balfour, I will tell it you, whatever," says
Alan. "The man, ye should ken, was cast upon a rock in the sea, where
it appears the Good People were in use to come and rest as they went
through to Ireland. The name of this rock is called the Skerryvore, and
it's not far from where we suffered ship-wreck. Well, it seems the man
cried so sore, if he could just see his little bairn before he died!
that at last the king of the Good People took peety