`` He 's an accomplice . He was posted here to hold us in talk . '' At that word -LRB- which I could hear quite plainly , though it was to the soldiers and not to me that he was crying it -RRB- my heart came in my mouth with quite a new kind of terror . Indeed , it is one thing to stand the danger of your life , and quite another to run the peril of both life and character . The thing , besides , had come so suddenly , like thunder out of a clear sky , that I was all amazed and helpless . The soldiers began to spread , some of them to run , and others to put up their pieces and cover me ; and still I stood . `` Jock * in here among the trees , '' said a voice close by . * Duck . Indeed , I scarce knew what I was doing , but I obeyed ; and as I did so , I heard the firelocks bang and the balls whistle in the birches . Just inside the shelter of the trees I found Alan Breck standing , with a fishing-rod . He gave me no salutation ; indeed it was no time for civilities ; only `` Come ! '' says he , and set off running along the side of the mountain towards Balachulish ; and I , like a sheep , to follow him . Now we ran among the birches ; now stooping behind low humps upon the mountain-side ; now crawling on all fours among the heather . The pace was deadly : my heart seemed bursting against my ribs ; and I had neither time to think nor breath to speak with . Only I remember seeing with wonder , that Alan every now and then would straighten himself to his full height and look back ; and every time he did so , there came a great far-away cheering and crying of the soldiers . Quarter of an hour later , Alan stopped , clapped down flat in the heather , and turned to me . `` Now , '' said he , `` it 's earnest . Do as I do , for your life . '' And at the same speed , but now with infinitely more precaution , we traced back again across the mountain-side by the same way that we had come , only perhaps higher ; till at last Alan threw himself down in the upper wood of Lettermore , where I had found him at the first , and lay , with his face in the bracken , panting like a dog . My own sides so ached , my head so swam , my tongue so hung out of my mouth with heat and dryness , that I lay beside him like one dead .
CHAPTER XVIII I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE XXXXX was the first to come round .
Alan Balachulish Breck Lettermore civilities firelocks first fishing-rod humps mountain-side