I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE

the jury; though as the other four were equally in the
Duke’s dependence, it mattered less than might appear.
Still, I cried out that he was unjust to the Duke of Argyle
who (for all he was a Whig) was yet a wise and honest
nobleman.

“Hoot!” said Alan, ‘‘the man’s a Whig, nae doubt;
but I would never deny he was a good chieftain to his
clan. And what would the clan think if there was a
Campbell shot, and naebody hanged, and their own
chief the Justice General P But I have often observed,”
says Alan, ‘‘that you Low-country bodies have no clear
idea of what’s right and wrong.”

At this I did at last laugh out aloud; when to my
surprise, Alan joined in, and laughed as merrily as
myself.

‘“Na, na,” said he, ‘‘we’re in the Hielands, David;
and when | tell ye to run, take my word and run.
Nae doubt it’s a hard thing to skulk and starve in the
heather, but it’s harder yet to lie shackled in a red-coat
prison.”

I asked him whither we should flee; and as he told
me ‘‘to the Lowlands,” I was a little better inclined to
go with him; for, indeed, I was growing impatient to
get back and have the upper-hand of my uncle. Be-
sides, Alan made so sure there would be no question of
justice in the matter, that I began to be afraid he might
be right. Of all deaths, I] would truly like least to die
by the gallows; and the picture of that uncanny instru-
ment came into my head with extraordinary clearness
(as I had once seen it engraved at the top of a pedlar’s
ballad) and took away my appetite for courts of justice.

“Vl chance it, Alan,” said I. ‘Pll go with you.”

155