ouse. And, truth to
tell, I was not thanking my brother for his heedlessness in compelling
the exchange, when I felt him stumble down the steep bank of the Garpel
and stride across, the water dashing about his legs as he waded
through--taking, as was his wont, no thought of an easy way or of
keeping of himself dry, but just going on ram-stam till he had won
clear.

CHAPTER XXXI.

JEAN'S WA'S.

Then on the other side he brushed through a little wood of oak and
hazel. I felt the twigs rough in my face. Climbing a steep brae, Sandy
set me down at the end of a house with some bits of offices about it,
and a pleasant homely smell of cows and pasturage. Saving these, there
were none of the other signs of a farm-town, but rather a brisk
cleanliness and well-ordered neatness.

Sandy went to the door and knocked, and in a little while one answered
at the southmost of the windows. Then a whispered word was given and
taken. The door was opened and we went into the dark house. A
sweet-faced old lady who stood in the narrow passage, gowned even at
that time of night with some precision, took me by the arm. She held a
candle aloft in her hand.

"Come awa', laddie," she said. "Ye shallna try the unkindly dasses o'
the Linn yet awhile, nor yet lie in 'Duncan's Pantry,' which has small
store of victual in it. But ye shall bide this nicht wi' Jean Gordon o'
the Shirmers, that has still some spunk in her yet, though folk say that
she died o' love thirty years syne. Hoot, silly clavers, Jean Gordon
could hae gotten a man ony time, had she been wantin' yin."

We were indeed at Jean Gordon's famous cot by the side of the bonny
Garpel burn. And it was not long till she had me cosy in bed, and Sandy,
to whom all weathers and lodgings were alike, away to his hiding in the
Cleuch beneath, where some of his society men were that night holding a
meeting for prayer.

The cottage sat bonnily on the brink of a glen, and almost from my very
window began the steep and precipitous descent. So that if the alarm
were suddenly given, there was at least a chance of flinging myself out
of the window and dropping into the tangled sides of the Linn of Garpel.
The thought of the comfort in Jean's cot made me the more willing to
take the risk. For I knew well that if I had to venture the damps and
chills of the glen without any shelter after my illness, it would fare
but poorly with me. So all that night I lay and listened to the murmur
of the