says I. `` We are here in a desert place , which yet we dare not leave ; and unless ye get the fowls of the air to be your messengers , I see not what we shall be able to do . '' `` Ay ? '' said Alan . `` Ye 're a man of small contrivance , David . '' Thereupon he fell in a muse , looking in the embers of the fire ; and presently , getting a piece of wood , he fashioned it in a cross , the four ends of which he blackened on the coals . Then he looked at me a little shyly . `` Could ye lend me my button ? '' says he . `` It seems a strange thing to ask a gift again , but I own I am laith to cut another . '' I gave him the button ; whereupon he strung it on a strip of his great-coat which he had used to bind the cross ; and tying in a little sprig of birch and another of fir , he looked upon his work with satisfaction . `` Now , '' said he , `` there is a little clachan '' -LRB- what is called a hamlet in the English -RRB- `` not very far from Corrynakiegh , and it has the name of Koalisnacoan . There there are living many friends of mine whom I could trust with my life , and some that I am no just so sure of . Ye see , David , there will be money set upon our heads ; James himsel ' is to set money on them ; and as for the Campbells , they would never spare siller where there was a Stewart to be hurt . If it was otherwise , I would go down to Koalisnacoan whatever , and trust my life into these people 's hands as lightly as I would trust another with my glove . '' `` But being so ? '' said I. `` Being so , '' said he , `` I would as lief they didnae see me . There 's bad folk everywhere , and what 's far worse , weak ones . So when it comes dark again , I will steal down into that clachan , and set this that I have been making in the window of a good friend of mine , John Breck Maccoll , a bouman * of Appin 's . '' * A bouman is a tenant who takes stock from the landlord and shares with him the increase . `` With all my heart , '' says I ; `` and if he finds it , what is he to think ? ''
`` Well , '' says XXXXX , `` I wish he was a man of more penetration , for by my troth I am afraid he will make little enough of it !
Alan Ay Corrynakiegh Maccoll Stewart clachan embers fire fowls laith