Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

ACKOSS  MORVEN.                                 153
wanting it). But these tenants (as I was saying) are
doubtless partly driven to it. James Stewart in Duror
(that's him they call James of the Glens) is half-
brother to Ardshiel, the captain of the clan; and he is
a man much looked up to, and drives very hard. And
then there's one they call Alan Breck------"
"Ah!" cried I, "what of him? 
"What of the wind that bloweth where it listeth?"
said Henderland. "He's here and awa; here to-day
and gone to-morrow : a fair heather-cat. He might be
glowering at the two of us out of yon whin-bush, and
I wouldnae wonder! Ye'll no carry such a thing as
snuff, will ye?"
I told him no, and that he had asked the same thing
more than once.
"It's highly possible," said he, sighing. "But it
seems strange ye shouldnae carry it. However, as I
was saying, this Alan Breck is a bold, desperate cus-
tomer, and well kent to be James's right hand. His
life is forfeit already; he would boggle at naething;
and maybe, if a tenant-body was to hang back, he
would get a dirk in his wame."
"You make a poor story of it all, Mr. Henderland,"
said I. "If it is all fear upon both sides, I care to hear
no more of it."
"Na," said Mr. Henderland, "but there's love too,
and self-denial that should put the like of you and me
to shame. There's something fine about it; no perhaps
Christian, but humanly fine. Even Alan Breck, by all