r to us, and wept
first upon my neck and then on Alan's, blessing God for our goodness to
her family.

"As for you, Alan, it was no more than your bounden duty," she said.
"But for this lad that has come here and seen us at our worst, and seen
the goodman fleeching like a suitor, him that by rights should give his
commands like any king--as for you, my lad," she says, "my heart is wae
not to have your name, but I have your face; and as long as my heart
beats under my bosom, I will keep it, and think of it, and bless it."
And with that she kissed me, and burst once more into such sobbing, that
I stood abashed.

"Hoot, hoot," said Alan, looking mighty silly. "The day comes unco soon
in this month of July; and to-morrow there'll be a fine to-do in Appin,
a fine riding of dragoons, and crying of 'Cruachan!'* and running of
red-coats; and it behoves you and me to the sooner be gone."

* The rallying-word of the Campbells.

Thereupon we said farewell, and set out again, bending somewhat
eastwards, in a fine mild dark night, and over much the same broken
country as before.

CHAPTER XX

THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE ROCKS

Sometimes we walked, sometimes ran; and as it drew on to morning, walked
ever the less and ran the more. Though, upon its face, that country
appeared to be a desert, yet there were huts and houses of the people,
of which we must have passed more than twenty, hidden in quiet places of
the hills. When we came to one of these, Alan would leave me in the way,
and go himself and rap upon the side of the house and speak awhile at
the window with some sleeper awakened. This was to pass the news; which,
in that country, was so much of a duty that Alan must pause to attend to
it even while fleeing for his life; and so well attended to by others,
that in more than half of the houses where we called they had heard
already of the murder. In the others, as well as I could make out
(standing back at a distance and hearing a strange tongue), the news was
received with more of consternation than surprise.

For all our hurry, day began to come in while we were still far from any
shelter. It found us in a prodigious valley, strewn with rocks and where
ran a foaming river. Wild mountains stood around it; there grew there
neither grass nor trees; and I have sometimes thought since then, that
it may have been the valley called Glencoe, where the massacre was in
the time of King William. But for the details o