We 're just to bide here with these , which are his out-sentries , till they can get word to the chief of my arrival . '' Now Cluny Macpherson , the chief of the clan Vourich , had been one of the leaders of the great rebellion six years before ; there was a price on his life ; and I had supposed him long ago in France , with the rest of the heads of that desperate party . Even tired as I was , the surprise of what I heard half wakened me . `` What , '' I cried , `` is Cluny still here ? '' `` Ay , is he so ! '' said Alan . `` Still in his own country and kept by his own clan . King George can do no more . '' I think I would have asked farther , but Alan gave me the put-off . `` I am rather wearied , '' he said , `` and I would like fine to get a sleep . '' And without more words , he rolled on his face in a deep heather bush , and seemed to sleep at once . There was no such thing possible for me . You have heard grasshoppers whirring in the grass in the summer time ? Well , I had no sooner closed my eyes , than my body , and above all my head , belly , and wrists , seemed to be filled with whirring grasshoppers ; and I must open my eyes again at once , and tumble and toss , and sit up and lie down ; and look at the sky which dazzled me , or at Cluny 's wild and dirty sentries , peering out over the top of the brae and chattering to each other in the Gaelic . That was all the rest I had , until the messenger returned ; when , as it appeared that Cluny would be glad to receive us , we must get once more upon our feet and set forward . Alan was in excellent good spirits , much refreshed by his sleep , very hungry , and looking pleasantly forward to a dram and a dish of hot collops , of which , it seems , the messenger had brought him word . For my part , it made me sick to hear of eating . I had been dead-heavy before , and now I felt a kind of dreadful lightness , which would not suffer me to walk . I drifted like a gossamer ; the ground seemed to me a cloud , the hills a feather-weight , the air to have a current , like a running burn , which carried me to and fro . With all that , a sort of horror of despair sat on my mind , so that I could have wept at my own helplessness .
I saw XXXXX knitting his brows at me , and supposed it was in anger ; and that gave me a pang of light-headed fear , like what a child may have .
Alan Cluny France Macpherson Vourich burn collops fro put-off years