CHAPTER XXIV

THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE QUARREL

Alan and I were put across Loch Errocht under cloud of night, and
went down its eastern shore to another hiding-place near the head
of Loch Rannoch, whither we were led by one of the gillies from
the Cage. This fellow carried all our luggage and Alan's
great-coat in the bargain, trotting along under the burthen, far
less than the half of which used to weigh me to the ground, like
a stout hill pony with a feather; yet he was a man that, in plain
contest, I could have broken on my knee.

Doubtless it was a great relief to walk disencumbered; and
perhaps without that relief, and the consequent sense of liberty
and lightness, I could not have walked at all. I was but new
risen from a bed of sickness; and there was nothing in the state
of our affairs to hearten me for much exertion; travelling, as we
did, over the most dismal deserts in Scotland, under a cloudy
heaven, and with divided hearts among the travellers.

For long, we said nothing; marching alongside or one behind the
other, each with a set countenance: I, angry and proud, and
drawing what strength I had from these two violent and sinful
feelings; Alan angry and ashamed, ashamed that he had lost my
money, angry that I should take it so ill.

The thought of a separation ran always the stronger in my mind;
and the more I approved of it, the more ashamed I grew of my
approval. It would be a fine, handsome, generous thing, indeed,
for Alan to turn round and say to me: "Go, I am in the most
danger, and my company only increases yours." But for me to turn
to the friend who certainly loved me, and say to him: "You are in
great danger, I am in but little; your friendship is a burden;
go, take your risks and bear your hardships alone ----" no, that
was impossible; and even to think of it privily to myself, made
my cheeks to burn.

And yet Alan had behaved like a child, and (what is worse) a
treacherous child. Wheedling my money from me while I lay
half-conscious was scarce better than theft; and yet here he was
trudging by my side, without a penny to his name, and by what I
could see, quite blithe to sponge upon the money he had driven me
to beg. True, I was ready to share it with him; but it made me
rage to see him count upon my readiness.

These were the two things uppermost in my mind; and I could open
my mouth upon neither without black ungenerosity. So I did the
next worst, and said nothing, nor so much as looked once at my
companion, save with the tail of my eye.

At last, upon the other side of Loch Errocht, going over a
smooth, rushy place, where the walking was easy, he could bear it
no longer, and came close to me.

"David," says he, "this is no way for two friends to take a small
accident. I have to say that I'm sorry; and so that's said. And
now if you have anything, ye'd better say it."

"O," says I, "I have nothing."

He seemed disconcerted; at which I was meanly pleased.

"No," said he, with rather a trembling voice, "but when I say I
was to blame?"

"Why, of course, ye were to blame," said I, coolly; "and you will
bear me out that I have never reproached you."

"Never," says he; "but ye ken very well that ye've done worse.
Are we to part? Ye said so once before. Are ye to say it again?
There's hills and heather enough between here and the two seas,
David; and I will own I'm no very keen to stay where I'm no
wanted."

This pierced me like a sword, and seemed to lay bare my private
disloyalty.

"Alan Breck!" I cried; and then: "Do you think I am one to turn
my back on you in your chief need? You dursn't say it to my
face. My whole conduct's there to give the lie to it. It's
true, I fell asleep upon the muir; but that was from weariness,
and you do wrong to cast it up to me----"

"Which is what I never did," said Alan.

"But aside from that," I continued, "what have I done that you
should even me to dogs by such a supposition? I never yet failed
a friend, and it's not likely I'll begin with you. There are
things between us that I can never forget, even if you can."

"I will only say this to ye, David," said Alan, very quietly,
"that I have long been owing ye my life, and now I owe ye money.
Ye should try to make that burden light for me."

This ought to have touched me, and in a manner it did, but the
wrong manner. I felt I was behaving, badly; and was now not only
angry with Alan, but angry with myself in the bargain; and it
made me the more cruel.

"You asked me to speak," said I. "Well, then, I will. You own
yourself that you have done me a disservice; I have had to
swallow an affront: I have never reproached you, I never named
the thing till you did. And now you blame me," cried I, "because
I cannae laugh and sing as if I was glad to be affronted. The
next thing will be that I'm to go down upon my knees and thank
you for it! Ye should think more of others, Alan Breck. If ye
thought more of others, ye would perhaps speak less about
yourself; and when a friend that likes you very well has passed
over an offence without a word, you would be blithe to let it
lie, instead of making it a stick to break his back with. By
your own way of it, it was you that was to blame; then it
shouldnae be you to seek the quarrel."

"Aweel," said Alan, "say nae mair."

And we fell back into our former silence; and came to our journey's
end, and supped, and lay down to sleep, without another word.

The gillie put us across Loch Rannoch in the dusk of the next
day, and gave us his opinion as to our best route. This was to
get us up at once into the tops of the mountains: to go round by
a circuit, turning the heads of Glen Lyon, Glen Lochay, and Glen
Dochart, and come down upon the lowlands by Kippen and the upper
waters of the Forth. Alan was little pleased with a route which
led us through the country of his blood-foes, the Glenorchy
Campbells. He objected that by turning to the east, we should
come almost at once among the Athole Stewarts, a race of his own
name and lineage, although following a different chief, and come
besides by a far easier and swifter way to the place whither we
were bound. But the gillie, who was indeed the chief man of
Cluny's scouts, had good reasons to give him on all hands, naming
the force of troops in every district, and alleging finally (as
well as I could understand) that we should nowhere be so little
troubled as in a country of the Campbells.

Alan gave way at last, but with only half a heart. "It's one of
the dowiest countries in Scotland," said he. "There's naething
there that I ken, but heath, and crows, and Campbells. But I see
that ye're a man of some penetration; and be it as ye please!"

We set forth accordingly by this itinerary; and for the best part
of three nights travelled on eerie mountains and among the
well-heads of wild rivers; often buried in mist, almost
continually blown and rained upon, and not once cheered by any
glimpse of sunshine. By day, we lay and slept in the drenching
heather; by night, incessantly clambered upon break-neck hills
and among rude crags. We often wandered; we were often so
involved in fog, that we must lie quiet till it lightened. A
fire was never to be thought of. Our only food was drammach and
a portion of cold meat that we had carried from the Cage; and as
for drink, Heaven knows we had no want of water.

This was a dreadful time, rendered the more dreadful by the gloom
of the weather and the country. I was never warm; my teeth
chattered in my head; I was troubled with a very sore throat,
such as I had on the isle; I had a painful stitch in my side,
which never left me; and when I slept in my wet bed, with the
rain beating above and the mud oozing below me, it was to live
over again in fancy the worst part of my adventures -- to see the
tower of Shaws lit by lightning, Ransome carried below on the
men's backs, Shuan dying on the round-house floor, or Colin
Campbell grasping at the bosom of his coat. From such broken
slumbers, I would be aroused in the gloaming, to sit up in the
same puddle where I had slept, and sup cold drammach; the rain
driving sharp in my face or running down my back in icy trickles;
the mist enfolding us like as in a gloomy chamber -- or, perhaps,
if the wind blew, falling suddenly apart and showing us the gulf
of some dark valley where the streams were crying aloud.

The sound of an infinite number of rivers came up from all round.
In this steady rain the springs of the mountain were broken up;
every glen gushed water like a cistern; every stream was in high
spate, and had filled and overflowed its channel. During our
night tramps, it was solemn to hear the voice of them below in
the valleys, now booming like thunder, now with an angry cry. I
could well understand the story of the Water Kelpie, that demon
of the streams, who is fabled to keep wailing and roaring at the
ford until the coming of the doomed traveller. Alan I saw
believed it, or half believed it; and when the cry of the river
rose more than usually sharp, I was little surprised (though, of
course, I would still be shocked) to see him cross himself in the
manner of the Catholics.

During all these horrid wanderings we had no familiarity,
scarcely even that of speech. The truth is that I was sickening
for my grave, which is my best excuse. But besides that I was of
an unforgiving disposition from my birth, slow to take offence,
slower to forget it, and now incensed both against my companion
and myself. For the best part of two days he was unweariedly
kind; silent, indeed, but always ready to help, and always hoping
(as I could very well see) that my displeasure would blow by.
For the same length of time I stayed in myself, nursing my anger,
roughly refusing his services, and passing him over with my eyes
as if he had been a bush or a stone.

The second night, or rather the peep of the third day, found us
upon a very open hill, so that we could not follow our usual plan
and lie down immediately to eat and sleep. Before we had reached
a place of shelter, the grey had come pretty clear, for though it
still rained, the clouds ran higher; and Alan, looking in my
face, showed some marks of concern.

"Ye had better let me take your pack," said he, for perhaps the
ninth time since we had parted from the scout beside Loch
Rannoch.

"I do very well, I thank you," said I, as cold as ice.

Alan flushed darkly. "I'll not offer it again," he said. "I'm
not a patient man, David."

"I never said you were," said I, which was exactly the rude,
silly speech of a boy of ten.

Alan made no answer at the time, but his conduct answered for
him. Henceforth, it is to be thought, he quite forgave himself
for the affair at Cluny's; cocked his hat again, walked jauntily,
whistled airs, and looked at me upon one side with a provoking
smile.

The third night we were to pass through the western end of the
country of Balquhidder. It came clear and cold, with a touch in
the air like frost, and a northerly wind that blew the clouds
away and made the stars bright. The streams were full, of
course, and still made a great noise among the hills; but I
observed that Alan thought no more upon the Kelpie, and was in
high good spirits. As for me, the change of weather came too
late; I had lain in the mire so long that (as the Bible has it)
my very clothes "abhorred me." I was dead weary, deadly sick and
full of pains and shiverings; the chill of the wind went through
me, and the sound of it confused my ears. In this poor state I
had to bear from my companion something in the nature of a
persecution. He spoke a good deal, and never without a taunt.
"Whig" was the best name he had to give me. "Here," he would
say, "here's a dub for ye to jump, my Whiggie! I ken you're a
fine jumper!" And so on; all the time with a gibing voice and face.

I knew it was my own doing, and no one else's; but I was too
miserable to repent. I felt I could drag myself but little
farther; pretty soon, I must lie down and die on these wet
mountains like a sheep or a fox, and my bones must whiten there
like the bones of a beast. My head was light perhaps; but I
began to love the prospect, I began to glory in the thought of
such a death, alone in the desert, with the wild eagles besieging
my last moments. Alan would repent then, I thought; he would
remember, when I was dead, how much he owed me, and the
remembrance would be torture. So I went like a sick, silly, and
bad-hearted schoolboy, feeding my anger against a fellow-man,
when I would have been better on my knees, crying on God for
mercy. And at each of Alan's taunts, I hugged myself. "Ah!"
thinks I to myself, "I have a better taunt in readiness; when I
lie down and die, you will feel it like a buffet in your face;
ah, what a revenge! ah, how you will regret your ingratitude and
cruelty!"

All the while, I was growing worse and worse. Once I had fallen,
my leg simply doubling under me, and this had struck Alan for the
moment; but I was afoot so briskly, and set off again with such a
natural manner, that he soon forgot the incident. Flushes of
heat went over me, and then spasms of shuddering. The stitch in
my side was hardly bearable. At last I began to feel that I
could trail myself no farther: and with that, there came on me
all at once the wish to have it out with Alan, let my anger
blaze, and be done with my life in a more sudden manner. He had
just called me "Whig." I stopped.

"Mr. Stewart," said I, in a voice that quivered like a
fiddle-string, "you are older than I am, and should know your
manners. Do you think it either very wise or very witty to cast
my politics in my teeth? I thought, where folk differed, it was
the part of gentlemen to differ civilly; and if I did not, I may
tell you I could find a better taunt than some of yours."

Alan had stopped opposite to me, his hat cocked, his hands in his
breeches pockets, his head a little on one side. He listened,
smiling evilly, as I could see by the starlight; and when I had
done he began to whistle a Jacobite air. It was the air made in
mockery of General Cope's defeat at Preston Pans:

"Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?
And are your drums a-beatin' yet?"


And it came in my mind that Alan, on the day of that battle, had
been engaged upon the royal side.

"Why do ye take that air, Mr. Stewart?" said I. "Is that to
remind me you have been beaten on both sides?"

The air stopped on Alan's lips. "David!" said he.

"But it's time these manners ceased," I continued; "and I mean
you shall henceforth speak civilly of my King and my good friends
the Campbells."

"I am a Stewart --" began Alan.

"O!" says I, "I ken ye bear a king's name. But you are to
remember, since I have been in the Highlands, I have seen a good
many of those that bear it; and the best I can say of them is
this, that they would be none the worse of washing."

"Do you know that you insult me?" said Alan, very low.

"I am sorry for that," said I, "for I am not done; and if you
distaste the sermon, I doubt the pirliecue[29] will please you as
little. You have been chased in the field by the grown men of my
party; it seems a poor kind of pleasure to out-face a boy. Both
the Campbells and the Whigs have beaten you; you have run before
them like a hare. It behoves you to speak of them as of your
betters."

[29] A second sermon.


Alan stood quite still, the tails of his great-coat clapping
behind him in the wind.

"This is a pity" he said at last. "There are things said that
cannot be passed over."

"I never asked you to," said I. "I am as ready as yourself."

"Ready?" said he.

"Ready," I repeated. "I am no blower and boaster like some that
I could name. Come on!" And drawing my sword, I fell on guard
as Alan himself had taught me.

"David!" he cried . "Are ye daft? I cannae draw upon ye, David.
It's fair murder."

"That was your look-out when you insulted me," said I.

"It's the truth!" cried Alan, and he stood for a moment, wringing
his mouth in his hand like a man in sore perplexity. "It's the
bare truth," he said, and drew his sword. But before I could
touch his blade with mine, he had thrown it from him and fallen
to the ground. "Na, na," he kept saying, "na, na -- I cannae, I
cannae."

At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me; and I found
myself only sick, and sorry, and blank, and wondering at myself.
I would have given the world to take back what I had said; but a
word once spoken, who can recapture it? I minded me of all
Alan's kindness and courage in the past, how he had helped and
cheered and borne with me in our evil days; and then recalled my
own insults, and saw that I had lost for ever that doughty
friend. At the same time, the sickness that hung upon me seemed
to redouble, and the pang in my side was like a sword for
sharpness. I thought I must have swooned where I stood.

This it was that gave me a thought. No apology could blot out
what I had said; it was needless to think of one, none could
cover the offence; but where an apology was vain, a mere cry for
help might bring Alan back to my side. I put my pride away from
me. "Alan!" I said; "if ye cannae help me, I must just die here."

He started up sitting, and looked at me.

"It's true," said I. "I'm by with it. O, let me get into the
bield of a house -- I'll can die there easier." I had no need to
pretend; whether I chose or not, I spoke in a weeping voice that
would have melted a heart of stone.

"Can ye walk?" asked Alan.

"No," said I, "not without help. This last hour my legs have
been 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!"

****

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