no more of taking the life of a godly
person, than of killing one of the long-woolled mountain sheep which are
the staple of these parts. So there was no need to run into more danger.
We were in plenty already without that.

After a long while we found ourselves under the front of the Dungeon
Hill, which is the wildest and most precipitous in all that country.
They say that when it thunders there, all the lightnings of heaven join
together to play upon the rocks of the Dungeon. And, indeed, it looks
like it; for most of the rocks there are rent and shattered, as though a
giant had broken them and thrown them about in his play.

Beneath this wild and rocky place we kept our way, till, across the
rounded head of the Hill of the Star, we caught a glimpse of the dim
country of hag and heather that lay beyond.

Then we held up the brae that is called the Gadlach, where is the best
road over the burn of Palscaig, and so up into the great wide valley
through which runs the Eglin Lane.

Wat and I had our precise information as to the cave in which lay the
Covenanter, Anton Lennox. So that, guiding ourselves by our marks, we
held a straight course for the corner of the Back Hill of the Star in
which the hiding place was.

I give no nearer direction to the famous Cove Macaterick for the
plainest reasons, though it is there to this day, and the herds ken it
well. But who knows how soon the times may grow troubleous again, and
the Cove reassert its ancient safety. But all that I will say is, that
if you want to find Cove Macaterick, William Howatson, the herd of the
Merrick, or douce, John Macmillan that dwells at Bongill in the Howe of
Trool, can take you there--that is, if your legs be able to carry you,
and you can prove yourself neither outlaw nor King's soldier. And this
word also, I say, that in the process of your long journeying you will
find out this, that though any bairn may write a history book, it takes
a man to herd the Merrick.

So in all good time we came to the place. It is half-way up a clint of
high rocks overlooking Loch Macaterick, and the hillside is bosky all
about with bushes, both birk and self-sown mountain ash. The mouth of
the cavern is quite hidden in the summer by the leaves, and in the
winter by the mat of interlacing branches and ferns. Above, there is a
diamond-shaped rock, which ever threatens to come down and block the
entrance to the cave. Which indeed it is bound to do some day.

Wat and