'Alan,' I said, 'it's not the want of will: it's the strength that I want. If I could, I would; but as sure as 250 I'm alive I cannot.'

'Very well, then,' said Alan. 'I'll carry ye.'

I looked to see if he were jesting; but no, the little man was in dead 255 earnest; and the sight of so much resolution shamed me.

'Lead away!' said I. 'I'll follow.' He gave me one look as much as to say, 'Well done, David!' and off 260 he set again at his top speed.

It grew cooler and even a little darker (but not much) with the coming of the night. The sky was cloudless; it was still early in July, and 266 pretty far north; in the darkest part of that night you would have needed pretty good eyes to read, but for all that, I have often seen it darker in a winter midday. Heavy dew fell 270 and drenched the moor like rain; and this refreshed me for awhile. When we stopped to breathe, and I had time to see all about me, the clearness and sweetness of the night, 276 the shapes of the hills like things asleep, and the fire dwindling away behind us like a bright spot in the midst of the moor, anger would come upon me in a clap that I must still 280 drag myself in agony and eat the dust like a worm.

By what I have read in books, I think few that have held a pen were ever really wearied, or they would 285 write of it more strongly. I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour; I did not think of myself, but 290 just of each fresh step which I was sure would be my last, with despair

and of Alan, who was the cause of it, with hatred. Alan was in the right trade as a soldier; this is the 295 officer's part to make men continue

to do things, they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was offered, they would lie down where they were and be killed. And I dare say I would have made a good 300 enough private; for in these last hours, it never occurred to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I was able, and die obeying.

Day began to come in, after years, 305 I thought; and by that time we were past the greatest danger, and could walk upon our feet like men, instead of crawling like brutes. But, dear heart have mercy! what a pair 310 we must have made, going double like old grandfathers, stumbling like babes, and as white as dead folk. Never a word passed between us; each set his mouth and kept his 315 eyes in front of him, and lifted up his foot and set it down again, like people lifting weights at a country play; all the while, with the moorfowl crying 'peep!' in the heather, 320 and the light coming slowly clearer in the east.

Not

I say Alan did as I did. that ever I looked at him, for I had enough ado to keep my feet; but 325 because it is plain he must have been as stupid with weariness as myself, and looked as little where we were going, or we should not have walked into an ambush like 330 blind men.

It fell in this way. We were going down a heathery brae, Alan leading and I following a pace or two behind, like a fiddler and his 336 wife; when upon a sudden the heather gave a rustle, three or four ragged men leaped out, and the next moment we were lying on our backs, each with a dirk at his throat.

I don't think I cared; the pain of this rough handling was quite swallowed up by the pains of which I was already full; and I was too

340

345 glad to have stopped walking to mind about a dirk. I lay looking up in the face of the man that held me; and I mind his face was black with the sun and his eyes very light, 350 but I was not afraid of him. I heard Alan and another whispering in the Gaelic; and what they said was all one to me.

Then the dirks were put up, our 365 weapons were taken away, and we were set face to face, sitting in the heather.

"They are Cluny's men,' said Alan. 'We couldnae have fallen better. 860 We're just to bide here with these, which are his out-sentries, till they can get word to the chief of my arrival.'

Now Cluny Macpherson, the chief 365 of the clan Vourich, had been one of the leaders of the great rebellion six years before; there was a price on his life; and I had supposed him long ago in France, with the rest 370 of the heads of that desperate party. Even tired as I was, the surprise of what I heard half wakened me.

875

'What,' I cried, 'is Cluny still here?'

'Ay, is he so!' said Alan. 'Still in his own country and kept by his own clan. King George can do no more.'

I think I would have asked farther, 380 but Alan gave me the put-off. 'I am rather wearied,' he said, 'and I would like fine to get a sleep.' And without more words, he rolled on his face in a deep heather bush, 385 and seemed to sleep at once.

There was no such thing possible for me. You have heard grasshoppers whirring in the grass in the summer time? time? Well, I had no 390 sooner closed my eyes, than my body, and above all my head, belly, and wrists, seemed to be filled with whirring grasshoppers; and I must open

That was all the rest I had, until the messenger returned; when, as it appeared that Cluny would be glad to receive us, we must get once more upon our feet and set forward. 405 Alan was in excellent good spirits, much refreshed by his sleep, very hungry, and looking pleasantly forward to a dram and a dish of hot collops, of which, it seems, the mes- 410 senger had brought him word. For my part, it made me sick to hear of eating. I had been dead-heavy before, and now I felt a sort of dreadful lightness, which would not suffer 415 me to walk. I drifted like a gossamer; the ground seemed to me a cloud, the hills a feather-weight, the air to have a current, like a running burn, which carried me to and fro. 420 With all that, a sort of horror of despair sat on my mind, so that I could have wept at my own helplessness.

I saw Alan knitting his brows at 425 me, and supposed it was in anger; and that gave me a pang of lightheaded fear, like what a child may have. I remember, too, that I was smiling, and could not stop smiling, 430 hard as I tried; for I thought it was out of place at such a time. But my good companion had nothing in his mind but kindness; and the next moment, two of the gillies had 435 me by the arms, and I began to be carried forward with great swiftness (or so it appeared to me, although I dare say it was slowly enough in truth), through a labyrinth of dreary 440 glens and hollows and into the heart of that dismal mountain of Ben Alder.

and the thud-thud-thud of the ball rolling along the ground. Evidently the little son had been waiting outside the door to secure his treasure. 25 But how had he managed to see that polo-ball?

Next day, coming back from office half-an-hour earlier than usual, I was aware of a small figure in the 30 dining-room- a tiny, plump figure in a ridiculously inadequate shirt which came, perhaps, half-way down the tubby stomach. It wandered round. the room, thumb in mouth, crooning 35 to itself as it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly this was the 'little son'.

He had no business in my room, of course; but was so deeply absorbed 40 in his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway. I stepped into the room and startled him nearly into a fit. He sat down on the ground with a gasp. His eyes opened, 45 and his mouth followed suit. I knew what was coming, and fled, followed❘ by a long, dry howl which reached the servants' quarters far more quickly than any command of mine had ever 50 done. In ten seconds Imam Din was in the dining-room. Then despairing sobs arose, and I returned to find Imam Din admonishing the small sinner who was using most of his 55 shirt as a handkerchief.

"This boy,' said Imam Din, judicially, 'is a budmash a big budmash. He will, without doubt, go to the jail-khana for his behaviour.' 60 Renewed yells from the penitent, and an elaborate apology to myself from Imam Din.

"Tell the baby,' said I, 'that the Sahib is not angry, and take him 65 away.' Imam Din conveyed my forgiveness to the offender, who had now gathered all his shirt round his neck, stringwise, and the yell subsided into a sob. The two set off

Never so

From that day dated my acquaintance with Muhammad Din. again did he come into my diningroom, but on the neutral ground of the compound, we greeted each other with much state, though our conversation was confined to 'Talaam, 85 Tahib' from his side, and 'Salaam, Muhammad Din' from mine. Daily on my return from office, the little white shirt and the fat little body used to rise from the shade of the 90 creeper-covered trellis where they had been hid; and daily I checked my horse here, that my salutation might not be slurred over or given unseemly.

95

Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about the compound, in and out of the castoroil bushes, on mysterious errands of his own. One day I stumbled upon 100 some of his handiwork far down the grounds. He had half buried the polo-ball in dust, and stuck six shrivelled old marigold flowers in a circle round it. round it. Outside that circle again 105 was a rude square, traced out in bits of red brick alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a little bank of dust. The bhistie from the well-curb put 110 in a plea for the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby and did not much disfigure my garden.

Heaven knows that I had no in- 115 tention of touching the child's work then or later; but, that evening, a stroll through the garden brought