falls; but nowhere the smoke of a house, nor any living
creature but some eagles screaming round a cliff.

Then at last Alan smiled.

"Ay," said he, "now we have a chance"; and then, looking at me with some
amusement, "Ye're no' very gleg[25] at the jumping," said he.

At this I suppose I coloured with mortification, for he added at once,
"Hoots! small blame to ye! To be feared of a thing and yet to do it, is
what makes the prettiest kind of a man. And then there was water there,
and water's a thing that dauntons even me. No, no," said Alan, "it's no'
you that's to blame, it's me."

I asked him why.

"Why," said he, "I have proved myself a gomeril this night. For first of
all I take a wrong road, and that in my own country of Appin; so that
the day has caught us where we should never have been; and, thanks to
that, we lie here in some danger and mair discomfort. And next (which is
the worst of the two, for a man that has been so much among the heather
as myself) I have come wanting a water-bottle, and here we lie for a
long summer's day with naething but neat spirit. Ye may think that a
small matter; but before it comes night, David, ye'll give me news of
it."

I was anxious to redeem my character, and offered, if he would pour out
the brandy, to run down and fill the bottle at the river.

"I wouldna waste the good spirit either," says he. "It's been a good
friend to you this night; or in my poor opinion, ye would still be
cocking on yon stone. And what's mair," says he, "ye may have observed
(you that's a man of so much penetration) that Alan Breck Stewart was
perhaps walking quicker than his ordinar'."

"You!" I cried, "you were running fit to burst."

"Was I so?" said he. "Well, then, ye may depend upon it there was nae
time to be lost. And now here is enough said; gang you to your sleep,
lad, and I'll watch."

Accordingly, I lay down to sleep; a little peaty earth had drifted in
between the top of the two rocks, and some bracken grew there, to be a
bed to me; the last thing I heard was still the crying of the eagles.

I daresay it would be nine in the morning when I was roughly awakened,
and found Alan's hand pressed upon my mouth.

"Wheesht!" he whispered. "Ye were snoring."

"Well," said I, surprised at his anxious and dark face, "and why not?"

He peered over the edge of the rock, and signed to me to do the like.

It was now high day, cloudless, and very hot. The valley was as clear as
in a pict