Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

112                                   KIDNAPPED.
the brae, and killed a fine trout; and I have sat in a
heather bush within six feet of another, and learned a
real bonny tune from his whistling. This was it," said
he, and whistled me the air.
"And then, besides," he continued, "it's no sae bad
now as it was in forty-six. The Hielands are what
they call pacified. Small wonder, with never a gun
or a sword left from Cantyre to Cape Wrath, but what
tenty* folk have hidden in their thatch! But what 1
would like to ken, David, is just how long? Not long,
ye would think, with men like Ardshiel in exile and
men like the Red Fox sitting birling the wine and
oppressing the poor at home. But it's a kittle thing to
decide what folk 'll bear, and what they will not. Or
why would Red Colin be riding his horse all over my
poor country of Appin, and never a pretty lad to put a
bullet in him?"
And with this Alan fell into a muse, and for a long
time sate very sad and silent.
I will add the rest of what I have to say about my
friend, that he was skilled in all kinds of music, but
principally pipe-music; was a well-considered poet in his
own tongue; had read several books both in French and
English; was a dead shot, a good angler, and an
excellent fencer with the small sword as well as with
his own particular weapon. For his faults, they were
on his face, and I now knew them all. But the worst
of them, his childish propensity to take offence and to
* Careful.