Fiction > Book editions > New York, 1886 - Kidnapped

KIDNAPPED. 151
He then began to question me cunningly, where I
came from, whether I was ricli, whether I couhl cliange
a five-shilling piece for him (which he declared he had
at that moment in his sporran), and all the time he
kept edging up to me, and I avoiding him. We were
now upon a sort of green cattle-track which crossed the
hills towards Torosay, and we kept changing sides upon
that like dancers in a reel. I had so plainly the upper
hand that my spirits rose, and indeed I took a pleasure
in this game of blind-man's-buff ; but the catecliist
grew angrier and angrier, and at last began to swear in
Gaelic and to strike for ray legs with his staff.
Then I told him that, sure enough, I had a pistol in
my pocket as well as he, and if he did not strike across
the hill due south I would even blow his brains out.
He became at once very polite ; and after trying to
soften me for some time, but quite in vain, he cursed
me once more in the Gaelic and took himself off. I
watched him striding along, through bog and briar,
tapping with his stick, until he turned the end of a hill
and disappeared in the next hollow. Then I struck on
again for Torosay, much better pleased to be alone than
to travel with that man of learning. This was an un-
lucky day ; and these two, of whom I had just rid my-
self, one after the othei', were the two worst men I met
with in the Highlands.
At Torosay, on the Sound of Mull and looking over
to the mainland of Morven, there was an inn with an