Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

150                                    KIDNAPPED.
It was not very easy to apologise; for I could scarce
tell him (what was the truth) that I had never dreamed
he would set up to be a gentleman until he told me so.
Neil on his part had no wish to prolong his dealings
with me, only to fulfil his orders and be done with it;
and he made haste to give me my route. This was to
lie the night in Kinlochaline in the public inn; to cross
Morven the next day to Ardgour, and lie the night in
the house of one John of the Claymore, who was warned
that I might come; the third day, to be set across one
loch at Corran and another at Balachulish, and then ask
my way to the house of James of the Glens, at Aucharn
in Duror of Appin. There was a good deal of ferrying,
as you hear; the sea in all this part running deep into
the mountains and winding about their roots. It makes
the country strong to hold and difficult to travel, but
full of prodigious wild and dreadful prospects.
I had some other advice from Neil; to speak with
no one by the way, to avoid Whigs, Campbells, and the
"red-soldiers;" to leave the road and lie in a bush, if
I saw any of the latter coming "for it was never chancy
to meet in with them;" and in brief, to conduct my-
self like a robber or a Jacobite agent, as perhaps Neil
thought me.
The inn at Kinlochaline was the most beggarly vile
place that ever pigs were styed in, full of smoke, vermin,
and silent Highlanders. I was not only discontented
with my lodging, but with myself for my mismanage-
ment of Neil, and thought I could hardly be worse off.