If your friend would like to stand on his head , he is welcome . And if either he , or you , or any other man , is not preceesely satisfied , I will be proud to step outside with him . '' I had no will that these two friends should cut their throats for my sake . `` Sir , '' said I , `` I am very wearied , as Alan says ; and what 's more , as you are a man that likely has sons of your own , I may tell you it was a promise to my father . '' `` Say nae mair , say nae mair , '' said Cluny , and pointed me to a bed of heather in a corner of the Cage . For all that he was displeased enough , looked at me askance , and grumbled when he looked . And indeed it must be owned that both my scruples and the words in which I declared them , smacked somewhat of the Covenanter , and were little in their place among wild Highland Jacobites . What with the brandy and the venison , a strange heaviness had come over me ; and I had scarce lain down upon the bed before I fell into a kind of trance , in which I continued almost the whole time of our stay in the Cage . Sometimes I was broad awake and understood what passed ; sometimes I only heard voices , or men snoring , like the voice of a silly river ; and the plaids upon the wall dwindled down and swelled out again , like firelight shadows on the roof . I must sometimes have spoken or cried out , for I remember I was now and then amazed at being answered ; yet I was conscious of no particular nightmare , only of a general , black , abiding horror -- a horror of the place I was in , and the bed I lay in , and the plaids on the wall , and the voices , and the fire , and myself . The barber-gillie , who was a doctor too , was called in to prescribe for me ; but as he spoke in the Gaelic , I understood not a word of his opinion , and was too sick even to ask for a translation . I knew well enough I was ill , and that was all I cared about . I paid little heed while I lay in this poor pass . But Alan and Cluny were most of the time at the cards , and I am clear that Alan must have begun by winning ; for I remember sitting up , and seeing them hard at it , and a great glittering pile of as much as sixty or a hundred guineas on the table . It looked strange enough , to see all this wealth in a nest upon a cliff-side , wattled about growing trees . And even then , I thought it seemed deep water for Alan to be riding , who had no better battle-horse than a green purse and a matter of five pounds . The luck , it seems , changed on the second day . About noon I was wakened as usual for dinner , and as usual refused to eat , and was given a dram with some bitter infusion which the barber had prescribed . The sun was shining in at the open door of the Cage , and this dazzled and offended me . Cluny sat at the table , biting the pack of cards .
XXXXX had stooped over the bed , and had his face close to my eyes ; to which , troubled as they were with the fever , it seemed of the most shocking bigness .
Alan Cluny Covenanter Jacobites barber-gillie battle-horse fire guineas pounds scruples