orse on the
right hand of my father, James More, and of Glengyle himself. And here
is one fine thing that I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in the face,
because (says he) 'my kinswoman, you are the only lady of the clan that
has come out,' and me a little maid of maybe twelve years old! I saw
Prince Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty indeed! I
had his hand to kiss in the front of the army. O, well, these were the
good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and then
awakened. It went what way you very well know; and these were the worst
days of all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father and my
uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in the
middle night, or at the short side of day when the cocks crow. Yes, I
have walked in the night, many's the time, and my heart great in me for
terror of the darkness. It is a strange thing I will never have been
meddled with a bogle; but they say a maid goes safe. Next there was my
uncle's marriage, and that was a dreadful affair beyond all. Jean Kay
was that woman's name; and she had me in the room with her that night at
Inversnaid, the night we took her from her friends in the old, ancient
manner. She would and she wouldn't; she was for marrying Rob the one
minute, and the next she would be for none of him. I will never have
seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all there was of her
would tell her ay or no. Well, she was a widow, and I can never be
thinking a widow a good woman."

"Catriona!" says I, "how do you make out that?"

"I do not know," said she; "I am only telling you the seeming in my
heart. And then to marry a new man! Fy! But that was her; and she was
married again upon my uncle Robin, and went with him a while to kirk and
market; and then wearied, or else her friends got claught of her and
talked her round, or maybe she turned ashamed; at the least of it, she
ran away, and went back to her own folk, and said we had held her in the
lake, and I will never tell you all what. I have never thought much of
any females since that day. And so, in the end, my father, James More,
came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest of it as well as me."

"And through all you had no friends?" said I.

"No," said she; "I have been pretty chief with two-three lasses on the
braes, but not to call it friends."

"Well, mine is a plain tale," said I. "I never had a friend to my name
till I met in with you."