then, I will. You own yourself
that you have done me a disservice; I have had to swallow an affront: I
have never reproached you, I never named the thing till you did. And now
you blame me," cried I, "because I canna laugh and sing as if I was glad
to be affronted. The next thing will be that I'm to go down upon my
knees and thank you for it! Ye should think more of others, Alan Breck.
If ye thought more of others, ye would perhaps speak less about
yourself; and when a friend that likes you very well has passed over an
offence without a word, you would be blithe to let it lie, instead of
making it a stick to break his back with. By your own way of it, it was
you that was to blame; then it shouldna be you to seek the quarrel."

"Aweel," said Alan, "say nae mair."

And we fell back into our former silence; and came to our journey's end,
and supped, and lay down to sleep, without another word.

The gillie put us across Loch Rannoch in the dusk of the next day, and
gave us his opinion as to our best route. This was to get us up at once
into the tops of the mountains: to go round by a circuit, turning the
heads of Glen Lyon, Glen Lochay, and Glen Dochart, and come down upon
the lowlands by Kippen and the upper waters of the Forth. Alan was
little pleased with a route which led us through the country of his
blood-foes, the Glenorchy Campbells. He objected that, by turning to the
east, we should come almost at once among the Athole Stewarts, a race of
his own name and lineage, although following a different chief, and come
besides by a far easier and swifter way to the place whither we were
bound. But the gillie, who was indeed the chief man of Cluny's scouts,
had good reasons to give him on all hands, naming the force of troops in
every district, and alleging finally (as well as I could understand)
that we should nowhere be so little troubled as in a country of the
Campbells.

Alan gave way at last, but with only half a heart. "It's one of the
dowiest countries in Scotland," said he. "There's naething there that I
ken, but heath, and crows, and Campbells. But I see that ye're a man of
some penetration; ind be it as ye please!"

We set forth accordingly by this itinerary; and for the best part of
three nights travelled on eerie mountains and among the well-heads of
wild rivers; often buried in mist, almost continually blown and rained
upon, and not once cheered by any glimpse of sunshine. By day, we lay
and slept in the d