ou may even hear that
the descendants of "the other man" who fired the shot are in the country
to this day. But that other man's name, inquire as you please, you shall
not hear; for the Highlander values a secret for itself and for the
congenial exercise of keeping it. I might go on for long to justify one
point and own another indefensible; it is more honest to confess at once
how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture
for the scholar's library, but a book for the winter evening school-room
when the tasks are over, and the hour for bed draws near; and honest
Alan, who was a grim old fire-eater in his day, has in this new avatar
no more desperate purpose than to steal some young gentleman's attention
from his "Ovid," carry him a while into the Highlands and the last
century, and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with
his dreams._

_As for you, my dear Charles, I do not even ask you to like this tale.
But perhaps when he is older, your son will; he may then be pleased to
find his father's name on the fly-leaf; and in the mean while it pleases
me to set it there, in memory of many days that were happy and some
(now perhaps as pleasant to remember) that were sad. If it is strange
for me to look back from a distance both in time and space on these
bygone adventures of our youth, it must be stranger for you who tread
the same streets--who may to-morrow open the door of the old
Speculative, where we begin to rank with Scott and Robert Emmet and the
beloved and inglorious Macbean--or may pass the corner of the close
where that great society, the L. J. R., held its meetings and drank its
beer, sitting in the seats of Burns and his companions. I think I see
you, moving there by plain daylight, beholding with your natural eyes
those places that have now become for your companion a part of the
scenery of dreams. How, in the intervals of present business, the past
must echo in your memory! Let it not echo often without some kind
thoughts of your friend,_

_R. L. S._
_Skerryvore,
Bournemouth._

KIDNAPPED

CHAPTER I

I SET OFF UPON MY JOURNEY TO THE HOUSE OF SHAWS

I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in
the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the
last time out of the door of my father's house. The sun began to shine
upon the summit of the hills as I went