`` 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 Alan 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 . I remember , too , that I was smiling , and could not stop smiling , hard as I tried ; for I thought it was out of place at such a time . But my good companion had nothing in his mind but kindness ; and the next moment , two of the gillies had me by the arms , and I began to be carried forward with great swiftness -LRB- or so it appeared to me , although I dare say it was slowly enough in truth -RRB- , through a labyrinth of dreary glens and hollows and into the heart of that dismal mountain of Ben Alder . CHAPTER XXIII CLUNY 'S CAGE We came at last to the foot of an exceeding steep wood , which scrambled up a craggy hillside , and was crowned by a naked precipice . `` It 's here , '' said one of the guides , and we struck up hill . The trees clung upon the slope , like sailors on the shrouds of a ship , and their trunks were like the rounds of a ladder , by which we mounted .
Quite at the top , and just before the rocky face of the cliff sprang above the foliage , we found that strange house which was known in the country as `` XXXXX 's Cage . ''
Alan Alder Cluny burn collops fro glens pang put-off shrouds