And with that she kissed me , and burst once more into such sobbing , that I stood abashed . `` Hoot , hoot , '' said Alan , looking mighty silly . `` The day comes unco soon in this month of July ; and to-morrow there 'll be a fine to-do in Appin , a fine riding of dragoons , and crying of ` Cruachan ! ' * and running of red-coats ; and it behoves you and me to the sooner be gone . '' * The rallying-word of the Campbells . Thereupon we said farewell , and set out again , bending somewhat eastwards , in a fine mild dark night , and over much the same broken country as before . CHAPTER XX THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER : THE ROCKS Sometimes we walked , sometimes ran ; and as it drew on to morning , walked ever the less and ran the more . Though , upon its face , that country appeared to be a desert , yet there were huts and houses of the people , of which we must have passed more than twenty , hidden in quiet places of the hills . When we came to one of these , Alan would leave me in the way , and go himself and rap upon the side of the house and speak awhile at the window with some sleeper awakened . This was to pass the news ; which , in that country , was so much of a duty that Alan must pause to attend to it even while fleeing for his life ; and so well attended to by others , that in more than half of the houses where we called they had heard already of the murder . In the others , as well as I could make out -LRB- standing back at a distance and hearing a strange tongue -RRB- , the news was received with more of consternation than surprise . For all our hurry , day began to come in while we were still far from any shelter . It found us in a prodigious valley , strewn with rocks and where ran a foaming river . Wild mountains stood around it ; there grew there neither grass nor trees ; and I have sometimes thought since then , that it may have been the valley called Glencoe , where the massacre was in the time of King William . But for the details of our itinerary , I am all to seek ; our way lying now by short cuts , now by great detours ; our pace being so hurried , our time of journeying usually by night ; and the names of such places as I asked and heard being in the Gaelic tongue and the more easily forgotten . The first peep of morning , then , showed us this horrible place , and I could see Alan knit his brow . `` This is no fit place for you and me , '' he said . `` This is a place they 're bound to watch . '' And with that he ran harder than ever down to the water-side , in a part where the river was split in two among three rocks . It went through with a horrid thundering that made my belly quake ; and there hung over the lynn a little mist of spray .
XXXXX looked neither to the right nor to the left , but jumped clean upon the middle rock and fell there on his hands and knees to check himself , for that rock was small and he might have pitched over on the far side .
Alan Appin Campbells Cruachan Glencoe day eastwards murder night rallying-word