tolen cattle
in there?'

Fairford intimated his ignorance,

'Ye must have seen it as ye came this way; it looks as if four hills
were laying their heads together, to shut out daylight from the dark
hollow space between them. A d--d deep, black, blackguard-looking
abyss of a hole it is, and goes straight down from the roadside, as
perpendicular as it can do, to be a heathery brae. At the bottom, there
is a small bit of a brook, that you would think could hardly find, its
way out from the hills that are so closely jammed round it.'

'A bad pass, indeed,' said Alan.

'You may say that,' continued the laird. 'Bad as it was, sir, it was
my only chance; and though my very flesh creeped when I thought what a
rumble I was going to get, yet I kept my heart up all the same. And so,
just when we came on the edge of this Beef-stand of the Johnstones, I
slipped out my hand from the handcuff, cried to Harry Gauntlet, 'Follow
me!'--whisked under the belly of the dragoon horse--flung my plaid round
me with the speed of lightning--threw myself on my side, for there was
no keeping my feet, and down the brae hurled I, over heather and fern,
and blackberries, like a barrel down Chalmer's Close, in Auld Reekie.
G--, sir, I never could help laughing when I think how the scoundrel
redcoats must have been bumbazed; for the mist being, as I said, thick,
they had little notion, I take it, that they were on the verge of such
a dilemma. I was half way down--for rowing is faster wark than
rinning--ere they could get at their arms; and then it was flash, flash,
flash--rap, rap, rap--from the edge of the road; but my head was too
jumbled to think anything either of that or the hard knocks I got among
the stones. I kept my senses thegither, whilk has been thought wonderful
by all that ever saw the place; and I helped myself with my hands as
gallantly as I could, and to the bottom I came. There I lay for half
a moment; but the thoughts of a gallows is worth all the salts and
scent-bottles in the world for bringing a man to himself. Up I sprang,
like a four-year-auld colt. All the hills were spinning round with me,
like so many great big humming-tops. But there was nae time to think of
that neither; more especially as the mist had risen a little with the
firing. I could see the villains, like sae mony craws on the edge of
the brae; and I reckon that they saw me; for some of the loons were
beginning to crawl down the hill, but liker auld wives in the