Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

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CHAPTER  XXVII.
I   COME   TO   MR.   RANKEILLOR.
THE next day it was agreed that Alan should fend for him-
self till sunset; but as soon as it began to grow dark, he
should lie in the fields by the roadside near to Newhalls,
and stir for naught until he heard me whistling. At
first I proposed I should give him for a signal the
"Bonnie House of Airlie," which was a favourite of
mine; but he objected that as the piece was very com-
monly known, any ploughman might whistle it by
accident; and taught me instead a little fragment of a
Highland air, which has run in my head from that day
to this, and will likely run in my head when I lie dying.
Every time it comes to me, it takes me off to that last
day of my uncertainty, with Alan sitting up in the
bottom of the den, whis\ill\ing and beating the measure
with a finger, and the grey of the dawn coming on his
face.
I was in the long street of Queensferry before the sun
was up. It was a fairly built burgh, the houses of good
stone, many slated; the town-hall not so fine, I thought,
as that of Peebles, nor yet the street so noble; but take
it altogether, it put me to shame for my foul tatters.
As the morning went on, and the fires began to be
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