in the embers of the fire; and
presently, getting a piece of wood, he fashioned it in a cross, the four
ends of which he blackened on the coals. Then he looked at me a little
shyly.

"Could ye lend me my button?" says he. "It seems a strange thing to ask
a gift again, but I own I am laith to cut another."

I gave him the button; whereupon he strung it on a strip of his
great-coat which he had used to bind the cross; and tying in a little
sprig of birch and another of fir, he looked upon his work with
satisfaction.

"Now," said he, "there is a little clachan" (what is called a hamlet in
the English) "not very far from Corrynakiegh, and it has the name of
Koalisnacoan. There there are living many friends of mine whom I could
trust with my life, and some that I am no' just so sure of. Ye see,
David, there will be money set upon our heads; James himsel' is to set
money on them; and as for the Campbells, they would never spare siller
where there was a Stewart to be hurt. If it was otherwise, I would go
down to Koalisnacoan whatever, and trust my life into these people's
hands as lightly as I would trust another with my glove."

"But being so?" said I.

"Being so," said he, "I would as lief they didna see me. There's bad
folk everywhere, and, what's far worse, weak ones. So, when it comes
dark again, I will steal down into that clachan, and set this that I
have been making in the window of a good friend of mine, John Breck
Maccoll, a bouman[26] of Appin's."

"With all my heart," says I; "and if he finds it, what is he to think?"

"Well," says Alan, "I wish he was a man of more penetration, for by my
troth I am afraid he will make little enough of it! But this is what I
have in my mind. This cross is something in the nature of the
crosstarrie, or fiery cross, which is the signal of gathering in our
clans; yet he will know well enough the clan is not to rise, for there
it is standing in his window, and no word with it. So he will say to
himsel', _The clan is not to rise, but there is something._ Then he
will see my button, and that was Duncan Stewart's. And then he will say
to himsel', _The son of Duncan is in the heather, and has need of me_."

"Well," said I, "it may be. But even supposing so, there is a good deal
of heather between here and the Forth."

"And that is a very true word," says Alan. "But then John Breck will see
the sprig of birch and the sprig of pine; and he will say to himsel' (if
he is a man of an