Sure enough , it was but my hands that reached the full length ; these slipped , caught again , slipped again ; and I was sliddering back into the lynn , when Alan seized me , first by the hair , then by the collar , and with a great strain dragged me into safety . Never a word he said , but set off running again for his life , and I must stagger to my feet and run after him . I had been weary before , but now I was sick and bruised , and partly drunken with the brandy ; I kept stumbling as I ran , I had a stitch that came near to overmaster me ; and when at last Alan paused under a great rock that stood there among a number of others , it was none too soon for David Balfour . A great rock I have said ; but by rights it was two rocks leaning together at the top , both some twenty feet high , and at the first sight inaccessible . Even Alan -LRB- though you may say he had as good as four hands -RRB- failed twice in an attempt to climb them ; and it was only at the third trial , and then by standing on my shoulders and leaping up with such force as I thought must have broken my collar-bone , that he secured a lodgment . Once there , he let down his leathern girdle ; and with the aid of that and a pair of shallow footholds in the rock , I scrambled up beside him . Then I saw why we had come there ; for the two rocks , being both somewhat hollow on the top and sloping one to the other , made a kind of dish or saucer , where as many as three or four men might have lain hidden . All this while Alan had not said a word , and had run and climbed with such a savage , silent frenzy of hurry , that I knew that he was in mortal fear of some miscarriage . Even now we were on the rock he said nothing , nor so much as relaxed the frowning look upon his face ; but clapped flat down , and keeping only one eye above the edge of our place of shelter scouted all round the compass . The dawn had come quite clear ; we could see the stony sides of the valley , and its bottom , which was bestrewed with rocks , and the river , which went from one side to another , and made white falls ; but nowhere the smoke of a house , nor any living creature but some eagles screaming round a cliff . Then at last Alan smiled . `` Ay '' said he , `` now we have a chance ; '' and then looking at me with some amusement , `` Ye 're no very gleg * at the jumping , '' said he . * Brisk . At this I suppose I coloured with mortification , for he added at once , `` Hoots ! small blame to ye ! To be feared of a thing and yet to do it , is what makes the prettiest kind of a man . And then there was water there , and water 's a thing that dauntons even me . No , no , '' said Alan , `` it 's no you that 's to blame , it 's me . '' I asked him why . `` Why , '' said he , `` I have proved myself a gomeral this night .
For XXXXX of all I take a wrong road , and that in my own country of Appin ; so that the day has caught us where we should never have been ; and thanks to that , we lie here in some danger and mair discomfort .
Alan Ay collar-bone first footholds leathern miscarriage night saucer third