of the Stuart Standard on the Braes
of Mar."

"And would you have come?" he inquired;
"would you have come?"

"It is hard," I answered coldly, "to tell
what a man would or would not do if his
honour could always march with his inclination.
But no summons from you would bring
me to the colours, even of those who were our
rightful Scottish kings."

"Still, you have come to-night."

"True, but it must occur to you that it is
not of the first order of a gentleman to force
a meeting, by wrapping a threat in a woman's
Christian name, even when you send your
message by so secure a hand as that of your
ghillie, Red Murdo."

He turned his head and, I felt, though I
could still only see vaguely, was looking straight
at me, as, certainly, I was looking at him.
While we looked and saw not, a quick, low
whistle came from the foot of the Pass and an
answering whistle, just as low, blew from the
top of it.

_II--Trapped by the Red-Coats_

Never, in all my experience of the hills, their fragrant peace and
their rude surprises, have I been so moved by an unexpected noise as I
was then, standing with the Black Colonel in the black Pass. Partly
this was because the surprise was complete, being unheralded by a
rustle or a movement, but, still more, because it was the magic hour at
which the womb of night moves to the birth of a new day.

Mingle the void of heaven and earth, and the sense of unseen spaces;
the long, sleeping mountains, with the drowsy trees that guard the
foot-hills; the caressing sigh of the wind, and, maybe, the murmur of a
stream flowing to the sea, and out of all this catch a whistle and its
answer. They sounded strangely eerie as they died into the hills,
touching us like the still small voice of the Scriptures and, also,
like it, carrying a note of apprehension, even of awe.

Under stress a mind moves instantly, and two thoughts leapt into mine,
that a trap had been set for the Black Colonel, and that he must
suspect me of it. To be sure I was, myself, within the wings of that
trap, but this perfect retort was like a gun in a bad position, it
could not be brought to bear. However, my own situation, peculiar as I
realized it to be, troubled me less, at the moment, than did the Black
Colonel's thoughts, as I conceived them, about my honour, and I do
suggest that it would have been the same with any other gentleman.

Ugly thoughts have a trick of riding double, and I fancied I heard him
try