nd, that I welcomed the company of the
outlaw leader as a relief to my own overstrained and painful thoughts;
and was not without hopes that through his means I might obtain some clew
of guidance through the maze in which my fate had involved me. I
therefore answered his greeting cordially, and congratulated him on his
late escape in circumstances when escape seemed impossible.

"Ay," he replied, "there is as much between the craig and the woodie* as
there is between the cup and the lip. But my peril was less than you may
think, being a stranger to this country.

* _i.e._ The throat and the withy. Twigs of willow, such as bind faggots,
were often used for halters in Scotland and Ireland, being a sage economy
of hemp.

Of those that were summoned to take me, and to keep me, and to retake me
again, there was a moiety, as cousin Nicol Jarvie calls it, that had nae
will that I suld be either taen, or keepit fast, or retaen; and of tother
moiety, there was as half was feared to stir me; and so I had only like
the fourth part of fifty or sixty men to deal withal."

"And enough, too, I should think," replied I.

"I dinna ken that," said he; "but I ken, that turn every ill-willer that
I had amang them out upon the green before the Clachan of Aberfoil, I wad
find them play with broadsword and target, one down and another come on."

He now inquired into my adventures since we entered his country, and
laughed heartily at my account of the battle we had in the inn, and at
the exploits of the Bailie with the red-hot poker.

"Let Glasgow Flourish!" he exclaimed. "The curse of Cromwell on me, if I
wad hae wished better sport than to see cousin Nicol Jarvie singe
Iverach's plaid, like a sheep's head between a pair of tongs. But my
cousin Jarvie," he added, more gravely, "has some gentleman's bluid in
his veins, although he has been unhappily bred up to a peaceful and
mechanical craft, which could not but blunt any pretty man's spirit.--Ye
may estimate the reason why I could not receive you at the Clachan of
Aberfoil as I purposed. They had made a fine hosenet for me when I was
absent twa or three days at Glasgow, upon the king's business--But I
think I broke up the league about their lugs--they'll no be able to hound
one clan against another as they hae dune. I hope soon to see the day
when a' Hielandmen will stand shouther to shouther. But what chanced
next?"

I gave him an account of the arrival of Captain Thornton and his pa