d
others had put ashore again at the south bay, they could not see her,
and she was still unfound when the triumph of the invader made flight
needful again.

"Her father would have bided too," said MacLachlan, "but that he had
reason to believe she found the safety of the castle. Lying off the quay
when the light was on, some of the people in the other boats saw a woman
with a burden run up the riverside to the back of the castle garden, and
there was still time to get over the draw-brig then."

MacLachlan himself had come round by the head of the loch, and by going
through the Barrabhreac wood and over the shoulder of Duntorval, had
taken Inneraora on the rear flank. He had lived several days in a bothy
above the Beannan on High Balantyre, and, like ourselves, depended on
his foraging upon the night and the luck of the woods.

We lay among the whins and bramble undisturbed till the dusk came on.
The rain had stopped, a few stars sedately decked the sky. Bursts of
laughing, the cries of comrades, bits of song, came on the air from the
town where the Irish caroused. At last between us and Dun-chuach there
seemed to be nothing to prevent us venturing on if the bridge was clear.

"If not," said Sir Donald, "here's a doomed old man, for I know no
swimming."

"There's Edinburgh for you, and a gentleman's education!" said John
Splendid, with a dry laugh; and he added, "But I daresay I could do the
swimming for the both of us, Sir Donald I have carried my accoutrements
dry over a German river ere now, and I think I could convey you safe
over yon bit burn even if it were not so shallow above the bridge as I
expect it is after these long frosts."

"I would sooner force the bridge if ten men held it," said MacLachlan.
"I have a Highland hatred of the running stream, and small notion to
sleep a night in wet tartan."

John looked at the young fellow with a struggle for tolerance. "Well,
well," he said; "we have all a touch of the fop in our youth."

"True enough, you're not so young as you were once," put in MacLachlan,
with a sly laugh.

"I'm twenty at the heart," cried John,--"at the heart, man,--and do my
looks make me more than twice that age? I can sing you, or run you, or
dance you. What I thought was that at your age I was dandified too about
my clothing. I'll give you the benefit of believing that it's not the
small discomfort of a journey in wet tartan you vex yourself over.
Have we not--we old campaigners of Lu