a thing that maybe I do over seldom."

"And what was that?" said I.

"O, just said my prayers," said he.

"And where are my gentry, as ye call them?" I asked.

"Gude kens," says he; "and the short and the long of it is that we must
take our chance of them. Up with your foot-soles, Davie! Forth, Fortune,
once again of it! And a bonny walk we are like to have."

So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans
were smoking, in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary
bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur's Seat and the green Pentlands; and
the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.

"I feel like a gomeril," says he, "to be leaving Scotland on a day like
this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here
and hing."

"Ay, but ye wouldna, Alan," said I.

"No' but what France is a good place too," he explained; "but it's some
way no' the same. It's brawer, I believe, but it's no' Scotland. I like
it fine when I'm there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and
the Scots peat-reek."

"If that's all you have to complain of, Alan, it's no such great
affair," said I.

"And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever," said he, "and me but
new out of yon deil's haystack."

"And so you were unco weary of your haystack?" I asked.

"Weary's nae word for it," said he. "I'm not just precisely a man that's
easily cast down; but I do better with caller air and the lift above my
head. I'm like the auld Black Douglas (wasna't?) that likit better to
hear the laverock sing than the mouse cheep. And yon place, ye see,
Davie--whilk was a very suitable place to hide in, as I'm free to
own--was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming. There were days (or nights, for
how would I tell one from other?) that seemed to me as long as a long
winter."

"How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?" I asked.

"The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-dowp to
eat it by, about eleeven," said he. "So, when I had swallowed a bit, it
would be time to be getting to the wood. There I lay and wearied for ye
sore, Davie," says he, laying his hand on my shoulder, "and guessed when
the two hours would be about by--unless Charlie Stewart would come and
tell me on his watch--and then back to the dooms haystack. Na, it was a
driech employ, and praise the Lord that I have warstled through with
it!"

"What did you do with yourself?" I asked.

"Faith," said he, "th