bservation, "I have not been altogether in the circumstances to make
your reception sic as I could have desired--natheless, if you would
condescend to visit my puir dwelling"--

"Muckle obliged, muckle obliged," answered Mr. Jarvie, very hastily--"But
we maun be ganging--we maun be jogging, Mr. Osbaldistone and me--business
canna wait."

"Aweel, kinsman," replied the Highlander, "ye ken our fashion--foster the
guest that comes--further him that maun gang. But ye cannot return by
Drymen--I must set you on Loch Lomond, and boat ye down to the Ferry o'
Balloch, and send your nags round to meet ye there. It's a maxim of a
wise man never to return by the same road he came, providing another's
free to him."

"Ay, ay, Rob," said the Bailie, "that's ane o' the maxims ye learned when
ye were a drover;--ye caredna to face the tenants where your beasts had
been taking a rug of their moorland grass in the by-ganging, and I doubt
your road's waur marked now than it was then."

"The mair need not to travel it ower often, kinsman," replied Rob; "but
I'se send round your nags to the ferry wi' Dougal Gregor, wha is
converted for that purpose into the Bailie's man, coming--not, as ye may
believe, from Aberfoil or Rob Roy's country, but on a quiet jaunt from
Stirling. See, here he is."

"I wadna hae ken'd the creature," said Mr. Jarvie; nor indeed was it easy
to recognise the wild Highlander, when he appeared before the door of the
cottage, attired in a hat, periwig, and riding-coat, which had once
called Andrew Fairservice master, and mounted on the Bailie's horse, and
leading mine. He received his last orders from his master to avoid
certain places where he might be exposed to suspicion--to collect what
intelligence he could in the course of his journey, and to await our
coming at an appointed place, near the Ferry of Balloch.

At the same time, MacGregor invited us to accompany him upon our own
road, assuring us that we must necessarily march a few miles before
breakfast, and recommending a dram of brandy as a proper introduction to
the journey, in which he was pledged by the Bailie, who pronounced it "an
unlawful and perilous habit to begin the day wi' spirituous liquors,
except to defend the stomach (whilk was a tender part) against the
morning mist; in whilk case his father the deacon had recommended a dram,
by precept and example."

"Very true, kinsman," replied Rob, "for which reason we, who are Children
of the Mist, have