and
glided like mute spectres, side by side, up its empty and silent streets.
The high and gloomy stone fronts, with the variegated ornaments and
pediments of the windows, looked yet taller and more sable by the
imperfect moonshine. Our walk was for some minutes in perfect silence. At
length my conductor spoke.

"Are you afraid?"

"I retort your own words," I replied: "wherefore should I fear?"

"Because you are with a stranger--perhaps an enemy, in a place where you
have no friends and many enemies."

"I neither fear you nor them; I am young, active, and armed."

"I am not armed," replied my conductor: "but no matter, a willing hand
never lacked weapon. You say you fear nothing; but if you knew who was by
your side, perhaps you might underlie a tremor."

"And why should I?" replied I. "I again repeat, I fear nought that you
can do."

"Nought that I can do?--Be it so. But do you not fear the consequences of
being found with one whose very name whispered in this lonely street
would make the stones themselves rise up to apprehend him--on whose head
half the men in Glasgow would build their fortune as on a found treasure,
had they the luck to grip him by the collar--the sound of whose
apprehension were as welcome at the Cross of Edinburgh as ever the news
of a field stricken and won in Flanders?"

"And who then are you, whose name should create so deep a feeling of
terror?" I replied.

"No enemy of yours, since I am conveying you to a place, where, were I
myself recognised and identified, iron to the heels and hemp to the craig
would be my brief dooming."

I paused and stood still on the pavement, drawing back so as to have the
most perfect view of my companion which the light afforded me, and which
was sufficient to guard against any sudden motion of assault.

"You have said," I answered, "either too much or too little--too much to
induce me to confide in you as a mere stranger, since you avow yourself a
person amenable to the laws of the country in which we are--and too
little, unless you could show that you are unjustly subjected to their
rigour."

As I ceased to speak, he made a step towards me. I drew back
instinctively, and laid my hand on the hilt of my sword.

"What!" said he--"on an unarmed man, and your friend?"

"I am yet ignorant if you are either the one or the other," I replied;
"and to say the truth, your language and manner might well entitle me to
doubt both."

"It is manfully spoken,"