n
fainting under me; I've a stitch in my side like a red-hot iron; I
cannae breathe right. If I die, ye'll can forgive me, Alan? In my heart,
I liked ye fine--even when I was the angriest."

"Wheesht, wheesht!" cried Alan. "Dinna say that! David man, ye ken--" He
shut his mouth upon a sob. "Let me get my arm about ye," he continued;
"that's the way! Now lean upon me hard. Gude kens where there's a house!
We're in Balwhidder, too; there should be no want of houses, no, nor
friends' houses here. Do ye gang easier so, Davie?"

"Ay" said I, "I can be doing this way;" and I pressed his arm with my
hand.

Again he came near sobbing. "Davie," said he, "I'm no a right man at
all; I have neither sense nor kindness; I could nae remember ye were
just a bairn, I couldnae see ye were dying on your feet; Davie, ye'll
have to try and forgive me."

"O man, let's say no more about it!" said I. "We're neither one of us
to mend the other--that's the truth! We must just bear and forbear, man
Alan. O, but my stitch is sore! Is there nae house?"

"I'll find a house to ye, David," he said, stoutly. "We'll follow down
the burn, where there's bound to be houses. My poor man, will ye no be
better on my back?"

"O, Alan," says I, "and me a good twelve inches taller?"

"Ye're no such a thing," cried Alan, with a start. "There may be a
trifling matter of an inch or two; I'm no saying I'm just exactly what
ye would call a tall man, whatever; and I dare say," he added, his voice
tailing off in a laughable manner, "now when I come to think of it, I
dare say ye'll be just about right. Ay, it'll be a foot, or near hand;
or may be even mair!"

It was sweet and laughable to hear Alan eat his words up in the fear of
some fresh quarrel. I could have laughed, had not my stitch caught me so
hard; but if I had laughed, I think I must have wept too.

"Alan," cried I, "what makes ye so good to me? What makes ye care for
such a thankless fellow?"

"'Deed, and I don't, know" said Alan. "For just precisely what I thought
I liked about ye, was that ye never quarrelled:--and now I like ye
better!"

CHAPTER XXV

IN BALQUHIDDER

At the door of the first house we came to, Alan knocked, which was of
no very safe enterprise in such a part of the Highlands as the Braes of
Balquhidder. No great clan held rule there; it was filled and disputed
by small septs, and broken remnants, and what they call "chiefless
folk," driven into the wild country about