prompt:
Chapter: Some seven hours' incessant, hard travelling brought us early in the
morning to the end of a range of mountains. In front of us there lay a
piece of low, broken, desert land, which we must now cross. The sun was
not long up, and shone straight in our eyes; a little, thin mist went up
from the face of the moorland like a smoke; so that (as Alan said) there
might have been twenty squadron of dragoons there and we none the wiser.

We sat down, therefore, in a howe of the hill-side till the mist should
have risen, and made ourselves a dish of drammach, and held a council of
war.

"David," said Alan, "this is the kittle bit. Shall we lie here till it
comes night, or shall we risk it, and stave on ahead?"

"Well," said I, "I am tired indeed, but I could walk as far again, if
that was all."

"Ay, but it isnae," said Alan, "nor yet the half. This is how we stand:
Appin's fair death to us. To the south it's all Campbells, and no to be
thought of. To the north; well, there's no muckle to be gained by going
north; neither for you, that wants to get to Queensferry, nor yet for
me, that wants to get to France. Well, then, we'll can strike east."

"East be it!" says I, quite cheerily; but I was thinking in to myself:
"O, man, if you would only take one point of the compass and let me take
any other, it would be the best for both of us."

"Well, then, east, ye see, we have the muirs," said Alan. "Once there,
David, it's mere pitch-and-toss. Out on yon bald, naked, flat place,
where can a body turn to? Let the red-coats come over a hill, they can
spy you miles away; and the sorrow's in their horses' heels, they would
soon ride you down. It's no good place, David; and I'm free to say, it's
worse by daylight than by dark."

"Alan," said I, "hear my way of it. Appin's death for us; we have none
too much money, nor yet meal; the longer they seek, the nearer they
may guess where we are; it's all a risk; and I give my word to go ahead
until we drop."

Alan was delighted. "There are whiles," said he, "when ye are altogether
too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me; but there
come other whiles when ye show yoursel' a mettle spark; and it's then,
David, that I love ye like a brother."

The mist rose and died away, and showed us that country lying as waste
as the sea; only the moorfowl and the pewees crying upon it, and far
over to the east, a herd of deer, moving like dots. Much of it was red
with heather; much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags and peaty
pools; some had been burnt black in a heath fire; and in another place
there was quite a forest of dead firs, standing like skeletons. A
wearier-looking desert man never saw; but at least it was clear of
troops, which was our point.

We went down accordingly into the waste, and began to make our toilsome
and devious travel towards the eastern verge. There were the tops of
mountains all round (you are to remember) from whence we might be spied
at any moment; so it behoved us to keep in the hollow parts of the moor,
and when these turned aside from our direction to move upon its naked
face with infinite care. Sometimes, for half an hour together, we must
crawl from one heather bush to another, as hunters do when they are hard
upon the deer. It was a clear day again, with a blazing sun; the water
in the brandy bottle was soon gone; and altogether, if I had guessed
what it would be to crawl half the time upon my belly and to walk much
of the rest stooping nearly to the knees, I should certainly have held
back from such a killing enterprise.

Toiling and resting and toiling again, we wore away the morning; and
about noon lay down in a thick bush of heather to sleep. Alan took the
first watch; and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before I
was shaken up to take the second. We had no clock to go by; and Alan
stuck a sprig of heath in the ground to serve instead; so that as soon
as the shadow of the bush should fall so far to the east, I might know
to rouse him. But I was by this time so weary that I could have slept
twelve hours at a stretch; I had the taste of sleep in my throat; my
joints slept even when my mind was waking; the hot smell of the heather,
and the drone of the wild bees, were like possets to me; and every now
and again I would give a jump and find I had been dozing.

The last time I woke I seemed to come back from farther away, and
thought the sun had taken a great start in the heavens. I looked at the
sprig of heath, and at that I could have cried aloud: for I saw I had
betrayed my trust. My head was nearly turned with fear and shame; and at
what I saw, when I looked out around me on the moor, my heart was like
dying in my body. For sure enough, a body of horse-soldiers had come
down during my sleep, and were drawing near to us from the south-east,
spread out in the shape of a fan and riding their horses to and fro in
the deep parts of the heather.

When I waked Alan, he glanced first at the soldiers, then at the mark
and the position of the sun, and knitted his brows with a sudden, quick
look, both ugly and anxious, which was all the reproach I had of him.

"What are we to do now?" I asked.

"We'll have to play at being hares," said he. "Do ye see yon mountain?"
pointing to one on the north-eastern sky.

"Ay," said I.

"Well, then," says he, "let us strike for that. Its name is Ben Alder.
it is a wild, desert mountain full of hills and hollows, and if we can
win to it before the morn, we may do yet."

"But, Alan," cried I, "that will take us across the very coming of the
soldiers!"

"I ken that fine," said he; "but if we are driven back on Appin, we are
two dead men. So now, David man, be brisk!"

With that he began to run forward on his hands and knees with an
incredible quickness, as though it were his natural way of going. All
the time, too, he kept winding in and out in the lower parts of the
moorland where we were the best concealed. Some of these had been burned
or at least scathed with fire; and there rose in our faces (which were
close to the ground) a blinding, choking dust as fine as smoke. The
water was long out; and this posture of running on the hands and knees
brings an overmastering weakness and weariness, so that the joints ache
and the wrists faint under your weight.

Now and then, indeed, where was a big bush of heather, we lay awhile,
and panted, and putting aside the leaves, looked back at the dragoons.
They had not spied us, for they held straight on; a half-troop, I think,
covering about two miles of ground, and beating it mighty thoroughly as
they went. I had awakened just in time; a little later, and we must have
fled in front of them, instead of escaping on one side. Even as it was,
the least misfortune might betray us; and now and again, when a grouse
rose out of the heather with a clap of wings, we lay as still as the
dead and were afraid to breathe.

The aching and faintness of my body, the labouring of my heart, the
soreness of my hands, and the smarting of my throat and eyes in the
continual smoke of dust and ashes, had soon grown to be so unbearable
that I would gladly have given up. Nothing but the fear of Alan lent me
enough of a false kind of courage to continue. As for himself (and you
are to bear in mind that he was cumbered with a great-coat) he had first
turned crimson, but as time went on the redness began to be mingled
with patches of white; his breath cried and whistled as it came; and his
voice, when he whispered his observations in my ear during our halts,
sounded like nothing human. Yet he seemed in no way dashed in spirits,
nor did he at all abate in his activity, so that I was driven to marvel
at the man's endurance.

At length, in the first gloaming of the night, we heard a trumpet sound,
and looking back from among the heather, saw the troop beginning to
collect. A little after, they had built a fire and camped for the night,
about the middle of the waste.

At this I begged and besought that we might lie down and sleep.

"There shall be no sleep the night!" said Alan. "From now on, these
weary dragoons of yours will keep the crown of the muirland, and none
will get out of Appin but winged fowls. We got through in the nick
of time, and shall we jeopard what we've gained? Na, na, when the day
comes, it shall find you and me in a fast place on Ben Alder."

"Alan," I said, "it's not the want of will: it's the strength that I
want. If I could, I would; but as sure as I'm alive I cannot."

"Very well, then," said Alan. "I'll carry ye."

I looked to see if he were jesting; but no, the little man was in dead
earnest; and the sight of so much resolution shamed me.

"Lead away!" said I. "I'll follow."

He gave me one look as much as to say, "Well done, David!" and off he
set again at his top speed.

It grew cooler and even a little darker (but not much) with the coming
of the night. The sky was cloudless; it was still early in July, and
pretty far north; in the darkest part of that night, you would have
needed pretty good eyes to read, but for all that, I have often seen it
darker in a winter mid-day. Heavy dew fell and drenched the moor like
rain; and this refreshed me for a while. When we stopped to breathe,
and I had time to see all about me, the clearness and sweetness of
the night, the shapes of the hills like things asleep, and the fire
dwindling away behind us, like a bright spot in the midst of the moor,
anger would come upon me in a clap that I must still drag myself in
agony and eat the dust like a worm.

By what I have read in books, I think few that have held a pen were ever
really wearied, or they would write of it more strongly. I had no care
of my life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered there was
such a lad as David Balfour. I did not think of myself, but just of each
fresh step which I was sure would be my last, with despair--and of Alan,
who was the cause of it, with hatred. Alan was in the right trade as a
soldier; this is the officer's part to make men continue to do things,
they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was offered, they would
lie down where they were and be killed. And I dare say I would have made
a good enough private; for in these last hours it never occurred to me
that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I was able, and die
obeying.

Day began to come in, after years, I thought; and by that time we were
past the greatest danger, and could walk upon our feet like men, instead
of crawling like brutes. But, dear heart have mercy! what a pair we must
have made, going double like old grandfathers, stumbling like babes,
and as white as dead folk. Never a word passed between us; each set his
mouth and kept his eyes in front of him, and lifted up his foot and set
it down again, like people lifting weights at a country play;* all the
while, with the moorfowl crying "peep!" in the heather, and the light
coming slowly clearer in the east.

     * Village fair.

I say Alan did as I did. Not that ever I looked at him, for I had enough
ado to keep my feet; but because it is plain he must have been as stupid
with weariness as myself, and looked as little where we were going, or
we should not have walked into an ambush like blind men.

It fell in this way. We were going down a heathery brae, Alan leading
and I following a pace or two behind, like a fiddler and his wife; when
upon a sudden the heather gave a rustle, three or four ragged men leaped
out, and the next moment we were lying on our backs, each with a dirk at
his throat.

I don't think I cared; the pain of this rough handling was quite
swallowed up by the pains of which I was already full; and I was too
glad to have stopped walking to mind about a dirk. I lay looking up in
the face of the man that held me; and I mind his face was black with the
sun, and his eyes very light, but I was not afraid of him. I heard Alan
and another whispering in the Gaelic; and what they said was all one to
me.

Then the dirks were put up, our weapons were taken away, and we were set
face to face, sitting in the heather.

"They are Cluny's men," said Alan. "We couldnae have fallen better.
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 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 (or so it appeared to me, although I dare say it
was slowly enough in truth), through a labyrinth of dreary glens and
hollows and into the heart of that dismal mountain of Ben Alder.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Alan and Davie travel for a solid seven hours until they reach a patch of barren, open ground they have to cross. Alan says that this is a "kittle" bit - Scots for tricky or perplexing. Davie is confused: he thinks that Alan is just asking if Davie can go on when he must be tired. But no, says Alan, the issue is this: behind them is Appin, crawling with English soldiers. To the south is the country of the Campbells, so that's obviously no good. There's no point in going north because Alan's trying to get to France, Davie to Queensferry. So they have to go east. But east is the moors, a long area of flat, boggy country that gives very little cover for them if they're spotted by soldiers. Davie says whatever, it's dangerous whichever way they go; they may as well go forward. Alan's psyched and compliments Davie on his courage. So they go on, crawling under whatever cover they can find and startling at every sound. They lie down for a rest and Davie takes watch - but he manages to fall asleep. Davie wakes with a start and realizes that he's drowsed off. As he's been sleeping, a group of soldiers has started coming closer to them from the southeast. Davie wakes Alan, who immediately works out that Davie has fallen asleep on his watch . Alan points to a distant mountain, Ben Alder, and says that if they can make it there by the next morning, they'll be safe. So they have to run across the moors on their hands and knees, ducking behind shrubs of heather and generally trying not to be seen. Davie is absolutely exhausted and wishes desperately that he could just give up. But he's afraid of Alan's anger. Finally, Davie is on the verge of collapsing and says that he can't go on. Alan replies that they can't rest: they've gotten away from Appin just in time, and if they don't keep going, they'll waste the lead they've established over the English. Alan offers to carry Davie. Davie is so stunned by this offer that he says he'll go on. But he's feeling like death as he keeps putting one foot in front of the other. The two of them keep staggering forward, bent in half and keeping low to the ground. They're both so tired that they walk straight into an ambush. Three or four guys suddenly jump out from the heather and press their knives against Davie and Alan's throats. Alan and the guys start chatting in Gaelic. It turns out that these fellows are "Cluny's men" . They send a messenger to Cluny Macpherson with news of who they've found on the moors. Cluny Macpherson was one of the major rebels in the 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie uprising, so Davie is surprised to hear that he is still hanging around Scotland with a price on his head after six years. Alan's feeling relieved to have fallen in with fellow Jacobites. Alan lies down to sleep, but Davie, even though he's tired, keeps tossing and turning. The messenger returns from Cluny with the news that the clan will welcome them. Davie, meanwhile, feels too sick to eat anything, and he's become so lightheaded that he can't concentrate. Two of Cluny's guards help him to Cluny's home in the mountain of Ben Alder.


prompt:
Chapter: 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 "Cluny's Cage." The trunks of several trees had been wattled
across, the intervals strengthened with stakes, and the ground behind
this barricade levelled up with earth to make the floor. A tree, which
grew out from the hillside, was the living centre-beam of the roof.
The walls were of wattle and covered with moss. The whole house had
something of an egg shape; and it half hung, half stood in that steep,
hillside thicket, like a wasp's nest in a green hawthorn.

Within, it was large enough to shelter five or six persons with some
comfort. A projection of the cliff had been cunningly employed to be the
fireplace; and the smoke rising against the face of the rock, and being
not dissimilar in colour, readily escaped notice from below.

This was but one of Cluny's hiding-places; he had caves, besides, and
underground chambers in several parts of his country; and following the
reports of his scouts, he moved from one to another as the soldiers
drew near or moved away. By this manner of living, and thanks to the
affection of his clan, he had not only stayed all this time in safety,
while so many others had fled or been taken and slain: but stayed four
or five years longer, and only went to France at last by the express
command of his master. There he soon died; and it is strange to reflect
that he may have regretted his Cage upon Ben Alder.

When we came to the door he was seated by his rock chimney, watching a
gillie about some cookery. He was mighty plainly habited, with a knitted
nightcap drawn over his ears, and smoked a foul cutty pipe. For all that
he had the manners of a king, and it was quite a sight to see him rise
out of his place to welcome us.

"Well, Mr. Stewart, come awa', sir!" said he, "and bring in your friend
that as yet I dinna ken the name of."

"And how is yourself, Cluny?" said Alan. "I hope ye do brawly, sir. And
I am proud to see ye, and to present to ye my friend the Laird of Shaws,
Mr. David Balfour."

Alan never referred to my estate without a touch of a sneer, when we
were alone; but with strangers, he rang the words out like a herald.

"Step in by, the both of ye, gentlemen," says Cluny. "I make ye welcome
to my house, which is a queer, rude place for certain, but one where I
have entertained a royal personage, Mr. Stewart--ye doubtless ken the
personage I have in my eye. We'll take a dram for luck, and as soon as
this handless man of mine has the collops ready, we'll dine and take a
hand at the cartes as gentlemen should. My life is a bit driegh," says
he, pouring out the brandy; "I see little company, and sit and twirl my
thumbs, and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another
great day that we all hope will be upon the road. And so here's a toast
to ye: The Restoration!"

Thereupon we all touched glasses and drank. I am sure I wished no ill
to King George; and if he had been there himself in proper person, it's
like he would have done as I did. No sooner had I taken out the drain
than I felt hugely better, and could look on and listen, still a little
mistily perhaps, but no longer with the same groundless horror and
distress of mind.

It was certainly a strange place, and we had a strange host. In his long
hiding, Cluny had grown to have all manner of precise habits, like those
of an old maid. He had a particular place, where no one else must sit;
the Cage was arranged in a particular way, which none must disturb;
cookery was one of his chief fancies, and even while he was greeting us
in, he kept an eye to the collops.

It appears, he sometimes visited or received visits from his wife and
one or two of his nearest friends, under the cover of night; but for the
more part lived quite alone, and communicated only with his sentinels
and the gillies that waited on him in the Cage. The first thing in the
morning, one of them, who was a barber, came and shaved him, and gave
him the news of the country, of which he was immoderately greedy. There
was no end to his questions; he put them as earnestly as a child; and
at some of the answers, laughed out of all bounds of reason, and would
break out again laughing at the mere memory, hours after the barber was
gone.

To be sure, there might have been a purpose in his questions; for
though he was thus sequestered, and like the other landed gentlemen of
Scotland, stripped by the late Act of Parliament of legal powers, he
still exercised a patriarchal justice in his clan. Disputes were brought
to him in his hiding-hole to be decided; and the men of his country,
who would have snapped their fingers at the Court of Session, laid
aside revenge and paid down money at the bare word of this forfeited and
hunted outlaw. When he was angered, which was often enough, he gave
his commands and breathed threats of punishment like any king; and his
gillies trembled and crouched away from him like children before a hasty
father. With each of them, as he entered, he ceremoniously shook hands,
both parties touching their bonnets at the same time in a military
manner. Altogether, I had a fair chance to see some of the inner
workings of a Highland clan; and this with a proscribed, fugitive chief;
his country conquered; the troops riding upon all sides in quest of
him, sometimes within a mile of where he lay; and when the least of the
ragged fellows whom he rated and threatened, could have made a fortune
by betraying him.

On that first day, as soon as the collops were ready, Cluny gave them
with his own hand a squeeze of a lemon (for he was well supplied with
luxuries) and bade us draw in to our meal.

"They," said he, meaning the collops, "are such as I gave his Royal
Highness in this very house; bating the lemon juice, for at that time we
were glad to get the meat and never fashed for kitchen.* Indeed, there
were mair dragoons than lemons in my country in the year forty-six."

     * Condiment.

I do not know if the collops were truly very good, but my heart rose
against the sight of them, and I could eat but little. All the while
Cluny entertained us with stories of Prince Charlie's stay in the Cage,
giving us the very words of the speakers, and rising from his place
to show us where they stood. By these, I gathered the Prince was a
gracious, spirited boy, like the son of a race of polite kings, but not
so wise as Solomon. I gathered, too, that while he was in the Cage, he
was often drunk; so the fault that has since, by all accounts, made such
a wreck of him, had even then begun to show itself.

We were no sooner done eating than Cluny brought out an old, thumbed,
greasy pack of cards, such as you may find in a mean inn; and his eyes
brightened in his face as he proposed that we should fall to playing.

Now this was one of the things I had been brought up to eschew like
disgrace; it being held by my father neither the part of a Christian
nor yet of a gentleman to set his own livelihood and fish for that of
others, on the cast of painted pasteboard. To be sure, I might have
pleaded my fatigue, which was excuse enough; but I thought it behoved
that I should bear a testimony. I must have got very red in the face,
but I spoke steadily, and told them I had no call to be a judge
of others, but for my own part, it was a matter in which I had no
clearness.

Cluny stopped mingling the cards. "What in deil's name is this?" says
he. "What kind of Whiggish, canting talk is this, for the house of Cluny
Macpherson?"

"I will put my hand in the fire for Mr. Balfour," says Alan. "He is an
honest and a mettle gentleman, and I would have ye bear in mind who says
it. I bear a king's name," says he, cocking his hat; "and I and any that
I call friend are company for the best. But the gentleman is tired, and
should sleep; if he has no mind to the cartes, it will never hinder you
and me. And I'm fit and willing, sir, to play ye any game that ye can
name."

"Sir," says Cluny, "in this poor house of mine I would have you to ken
that any gentleman may follow his pleasure. If your friend would like to
stand on his head, he is welcome. And if either he, or you, or any other
man, is not preceesely satisfied, I will be proud to step outside with
him."

I had no will that these two friends should cut their throats for my
sake.

"Sir," said I, "I am very wearied, as Alan says; and what's more, as
you are a man that likely has sons of your own, I may tell you it was a
promise to my father."

"Say nae mair, say nae mair," said Cluny, and pointed me to a bed of
heather in a corner of the Cage. For all that he was displeased enough,
looked at me askance, and grumbled when he looked. And indeed it must
be owned that both my scruples and the words in which I declared them,
smacked somewhat of the Covenanter, and were little in their place among
wild Highland Jacobites.

What with the brandy and the venison, a strange heaviness had come over
me; and I had scarce lain down upon the bed before I fell into a kind
of trance, in which I continued almost the whole time of our stay in the
Cage. Sometimes I was broad awake and understood what passed; sometimes
I only heard voices, or men snoring, like the voice of a silly river;
and the plaids upon the wall dwindled down and swelled out again, like
firelight shadows on the roof. I must sometimes have spoken or cried
out, for I remember I was now and then amazed at being answered; yet
I was conscious of no particular nightmare, only of a general, black,
abiding horror--a horror of the place I was in, and the bed I lay in,
and the plaids on the wall, and the voices, and the fire, and myself.

The barber-gillie, who was a doctor too, was called in to prescribe
for me; but as he spoke in the Gaelic, I understood not a word of his
opinion, and was too sick even to ask for a translation. I knew well
enough I was ill, and that was all I cared about.

I paid little heed while I lay in this poor pass. But Alan and Cluny
were most of the time at the cards, and I am clear that Alan must have
begun by winning; for I remember sitting up, and seeing them hard at it,
and a great glittering pile of as much as sixty or a hundred guineas on
the table. It looked strange enough, to see all this wealth in a nest
upon a cliff-side, wattled about growing trees. And even then, I
thought it seemed deep water for Alan to be riding, who had no better
battle-horse than a green purse and a matter of five pounds.

The luck, it seems, changed on the second day. About noon I was wakened
as usual for dinner, and as usual refused to eat, and was given a dram
with some bitter infusion which the barber had prescribed. The sun was
shining in at the open door of the Cage, and this dazzled and offended
me. Cluny sat at the table, biting the pack of cards. Alan had stooped
over the bed, and had his face close to my eyes; to which, troubled as
they were with the fever, it seemed of the most shocking bigness.

He asked me for a loan of my money.

"What for?" said I.

"O, just for a loan," said he.

"But why?" I repeated. "I don't see."

"Hut, David!" said Alan, "ye wouldnae grudge me a loan?"

I would, though, if I had had my senses! But all I thought of then was
to get his face away, and I handed him my money.

On the morning of the third day, when we had been forty-eight hours in
the Cage, I awoke with a great relief of spirits, very weak and weary
indeed, but seeing things of the right size and with their honest,
everyday appearance. I had a mind to eat, moreover, rose from bed of my
own movement, and as soon as we had breakfasted, stepped to the entry of
the Cage and sat down outside in the top of the wood. It was a grey day
with a cool, mild air: and I sat in a dream all morning, only disturbed
by the passing by of Cluny's scouts and servants coming with provisions
and reports; for as the coast was at that time clear, you might almost
say he held court openly.

When I returned, he and Alan had laid the cards aside, and were
questioning a gillie; and the chief turned about and spoke to me in the
Gaelic.

"I have no Gaelic, sir," said I.

Now since the card question, everything I said or did had the power of
annoying Cluny. "Your name has more sense than yourself, then," said he
angrily, "for it's good Gaelic. But the point is this. My scout reports
all clear in the south, and the question is, have ye the strength to
go?"

I saw cards on the table, but no gold; only a heap of little written
papers, and these all on Cluny's side. Alan, besides, had an odd
look, like a man not very well content; and I began to have a strong
misgiving.

"I do not know if I am as well as I should be," said I, looking at Alan;
"but the little money we have has a long way to carry us."

Alan took his under-lip into his mouth, and looked upon the ground.

"David," says he at last, "I've lost it; there's the naked truth."

"My money too?" said I.

"Your money too," says Alan, with a groan. "Ye shouldnae have given it
me. I'm daft when I get to the cartes."

"Hoot-toot! hoot-toot!" said Cluny. "It was all daffing; it's all
nonsense. Of course you'll have your money back again, and the double of
it, if ye'll make so free with me. It would be a singular thing for me
to keep it. It's not to be supposed that I would be any hindrance to
gentlemen in your situation; that would be a singular thing!" cries he,
and began to pull gold out of his pocket with a mighty red face.

Alan said nothing, only looked on the ground.

"Will you step to the door with me, sir?" said I.

Cluny said he would be very glad, and followed me readily enough, but he
looked flustered and put out.

"And now, sir," says I, "I must first acknowledge your generosity."

"Nonsensical nonsense!" cries Cluny. "Where's the generosity? This is
just a most unfortunate affair; but what would ye have me do--boxed
up in this bee-skep of a cage of mine--but just set my friends to the
cartes, when I can get them? And if they lose, of course, it's not to be
supposed----" And here he came to a pause.

"Yes," said I, "if they lose, you give them back their money; and if
they win, they carry away yours in their pouches! I have said before
that I grant your generosity; but to me, sir, it's a very painful thing
to be placed in this position."

There was a little silence, in which Cluny seemed always as if he was
about to speak, but said nothing. All the time he grew redder and redder
in the face.

"I am a young man," said I, "and I ask your advice. Advise me as you
would your son. My friend fairly lost his money, after having fairly
gained a far greater sum of yours; can I accept it back again? Would
that be the right part for me to play? Whatever I do, you can see for
yourself it must be hard upon a man of any pride."

"It's rather hard on me, too, Mr. Balfour," said Cluny, "and ye give
me very much the look of a man that has entrapped poor people to their
hurt. I wouldnae have my friends come to any house of mine to accept
affronts; no," he cried, with a sudden heat of anger, "nor yet to give
them!"

"And so you see, sir," said I, "there is something to be said upon my
side; and this gambling is a very poor employ for gentlefolks. But I am
still waiting your opinion."

I am sure if ever Cluny hated any man it was David Balfour. He looked
me all over with a warlike eye, and I saw the challenge at his lips.
But either my youth disarmed him, or perhaps his own sense of justice.
Certainly it was a mortifying matter for all concerned, and not least
Cluny; the more credit that he took it as he did.

"Mr. Balfour," said he, "I think you are too nice and covenanting, but
for all that you have the spirit of a very pretty gentleman. Upon my
honest word, ye may take this money--it's what I would tell my son--and
here's my hand along with it!"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Cluny's house, on top of a rocky cliff, is known as "Cluny's Cage" , and it's built around a thick group of trees used as living supports for the structure. Since the end of the Jacobite uprising in 1746, Cluny had spent his time moving from hiding place to hiding place, from caves to the homes of his clansmen to this Cage, whenever soldiers got too near. Cluny welcomes Alan . Alan introduces Davie, emphasizing that he is the Laird of Shaws. Cluny comments that, even though his Cage is a bit rough, he's had royalty there . As a passionate Jacobite, Cluny toasts the "Restoration" - the restoration of the Stuart family to the throne of England and Ireland. Anyway, Cluny's gotten a bit weird being in hiding all of these years. He spends most of his time alone, since he's, you know, on the run, and that tends to make people a little nuts. Davie can't eat very much of the meal he's been given , but he does listen with interest to Cluny's stories of Prince Charlie. After supper, Cluny brings out a deck of cards. Davie has been taught that it's neither Christian nor gentlemanly to bet on cards. He tells Cluny and Alan that, while he won't judge them, he doesn't think it's moral to play. Cluny is offended. Alan defends Davie, saying that he's a good man but probably a bit tired. Davie should go to bed and Alan will play Cluny in any game that he chooses. Cluny says that's all fine, that any guest of his can do whatever he chooses - and if there's any lack of satisfaction in his hospitality, he'll be happy to step outside and settle the matter. Davie agrees that he's just tired, and that his protests are the result of a promise to his father. Cluny sends Davie to bed still looking angry. Davie pretty much passes out as soon as he hits the bed. A barber is called to examine Davie but, as the barber speaks in Gaelic, Davie has no clue what he's saying. Meanwhile, Cluny and Alan spend most of their time playing cards. On the second day of Davie's illness, Alan comes over and asks Davie for a loan. If Davie hadn't been so sick, he probably wouldn't have done it, but as it is, he gives Alan his purse. Davie finally wakes up on the third day feeling weak but better, and ready to eat. Davie sees cards on the table between Alan and Cluny but no gold. Alan has gambled away all of his own money and Davie's as well. Cluny gets upset and says that, of course he isn't planning to keep the money! He's just been lonely in his Cage and wanting a bit of sport. Davie asks Cluny to come outside with him and then pretty much guilts him into actually, legitimately giving back the gold .


prompt:
Chapter: Alan and I were put across Loch Errocht under cloud of night, and went
down its eastern shore to another hiding-place near the head of Loch
Rannoch, whither we were led by one of the gillies from the Cage. This
fellow carried all our luggage and Alan's great-coat in the bargain,
trotting along under the burthen, far less than the half of which used
to weigh me to the ground, like a stout hill pony with a feather; yet he
was a man that, in plain contest, I could have broken on my knee.

Doubtless it was a great relief to walk disencumbered; and perhaps
without that relief, and the consequent sense of liberty and lightness,
I could not have walked at all. I was but new risen from a bed of
sickness; and there was nothing in the state of our affairs to hearten
me for much exertion; travelling, as we did, over the most dismal
deserts in Scotland, under a cloudy heaven, and with divided hearts
among the travellers.

For long, we said nothing; marching alongside or one behind the other,
each with a set countenance: I, angry and proud, and drawing what
strength I had from these two violent and sinful feelings; Alan angry
and ashamed, ashamed that he had lost my money, angry that I should take
it so ill.

The thought of a separation ran always the stronger in my mind; and the
more I approved of it, the more ashamed I grew of my approval. It would
be a fine, handsome, generous thing, indeed, for Alan to turn round and
say to me: "Go, I am in the most danger, and my company only increases
yours." But for me to turn to the friend who certainly loved me, and say
to him: "You are in great danger, I am in but little; your friendship
is a burden; go, take your risks and bear your hardships alone----" no,
that was impossible; and even to think of it privily to myself, made my
cheeks to burn.

And yet Alan had behaved like a child, and (what is worse) a treacherous
child. Wheedling my money from me while I lay half-conscious was scarce
better than theft; and yet here he was trudging by my side, without a
penny to his name, and by what I could see, quite blithe to sponge upon
the money he had driven me to beg. True, I was ready to share it with
him; but it made me rage to see him count upon my readiness.

These were the two things uppermost in my mind; and I could open my
mouth upon neither without black ungenerosity. So I did the next worst,
and said nothing, nor so much as looked once at my companion, save with
the tail of my eye.

At last, upon the other side of Loch Errocht, going over a smooth, rushy
place, where the walking was easy, he could bear it no longer, and came
close to me.

"David," says he, "this is no way for two friends to take a small
accident. I have to say that I'm sorry; and so that's said. And now if
you have anything, ye'd better say it."

"O," says I, "I have nothing."

He seemed disconcerted; at which I was meanly pleased.

"No," said he, with rather a trembling voice, "but when I say I was to
blame?"

"Why, of course, ye were to blame," said I, coolly; "and you will bear
me out that I have never reproached you."

"Never," says he; "but ye ken very well that ye've done worse. Are we to
part? Ye said so once before. Are ye to say it again? There's hills and
heather enough between here and the two seas, David; and I will own I'm
no very keen to stay where I'm no wanted."

This pierced me like a sword, and seemed to lay bare my private
disloyalty.

"Alan Breck!" I cried; and then: "Do you think I am one to turn my
back on you in your chief need? You dursn't say it to my face. My whole
conduct's there to give the lie to it. It's true, I fell asleep upon
the muir; but that was from weariness, and you do wrong to cast it up to
me----"

"Which is what I never did," said Alan.

"But aside from that," I continued, "what have I done that you should
even me to dogs by such a supposition? I never yet failed a friend, and
it's not likely I'll begin with you. There are things between us that I
can never forget, even if you can."

"I will only say this to ye, David," said Alan, very quietly, "that I
have long been owing ye my life, and now I owe ye money. Ye should try
to make that burden light for me."

This ought to have touched me, and in a manner it did, but the wrong
manner. I felt I was behaving badly; and was now not only angry with
Alan, but angry with myself in the bargain; and it made me the more
cruel.

"You asked me to speak," said I. "Well, then, I will. You own yourself
that you have done me a disservice; I have had to swallow an affront: I
have never reproached you, I never named the thing till you did. And
now you blame me," cried I, "because I cannae laugh and sing as if I was
glad to be affronted. The next thing will be that I'm to go down upon my
knees and thank you for it! Ye should think more of others, Alan
Breck. If ye thought more of others, ye would perhaps speak less about
yourself; and when a friend that likes you very well has passed over an
offence without a word, you would be blithe to let it lie, instead of
making it a stick to break his back with. By your own way of it, it was
you that was to blame; then it shouldnae be you to seek the quarrel."

"Aweel," said Alan, "say nae mair."

And we fell back into our former silence; and came to our journey's end,
and supped, and lay down to sleep, without another word.

The gillie put us across Loch Rannoch in the dusk of the next day, and
gave us his opinion as to our best route. This was to get us up at once
into the tops of the mountains: to go round by a circuit, turning the
heads of Glen Lyon, Glen Lochay, and Glen Dochart, and come down upon
the lowlands by Kippen and the upper waters of the Forth. Alan was
little pleased with a route which led us through the country of his
blood-foes, the Glenorchy Campbells. He objected that by turning to the
east, we should come almost at once among the Athole Stewarts, a race of
his own name and lineage, although following a different chief, and come
besides by a far easier and swifter way to the place whither we were
bound. But the gillie, who was indeed the chief man of Cluny's scouts,
had good reasons to give him on all hands, naming the force of troops
in every district, and alleging finally (as well as I could understand)
that we should nowhere be so little troubled as in a country of the
Campbells.

Alan gave way at last, but with only half a heart. "It's one of the
dowiest countries in Scotland," said he. "There's naething there that I
ken, but heath, and crows, and Campbells. But I see that ye're a man of
some penetration; and be it as ye please!"

We set forth accordingly by this itinerary; and for the best part of
three nights travelled on eerie mountains and among the well-heads of
wild rivers; often buried in mist, almost continually blown and rained
upon, and not once cheered by any glimpse of sunshine. By day, we lay
and slept in the drenching heather; by night, incessantly clambered upon
break-neck hills and among rude crags. We often wandered; we were often
so involved in fog, that we must lie quiet till it lightened. A fire was
never to be thought of. Our only food was drammach and a portion of cold
meat that we had carried from the Cage; and as for drink, Heaven knows
we had no want of water.

This was a dreadful time, rendered the more dreadful by the gloom of
the weather and the country. I was never warm; my teeth chattered in my
head; I was troubled with a very sore throat, such as I had on the isle;
I had a painful stitch in my side, which never left me; and when I slept
in my wet bed, with the rain beating above and the mud oozing below me,
it was to live over again in fancy the worst part of my adventures--to
see the tower of Shaws lit by lightning, Ransome carried below on the
men's backs, Shuan dying on the round-house floor, or Colin Campbell
grasping at the bosom of his coat. From such broken slumbers, I would be
aroused in the gloaming, to sit up in the same puddle where I had slept,
and sup cold drammach; the rain driving sharp in my face or running
down my back in icy trickles; the mist enfolding us like as in a gloomy
chamber--or, perhaps, if the wind blew, falling suddenly apart and
showing us the gulf of some dark valley where the streams were crying
aloud.

The sound of an infinite number of rivers came up from all round. In
this steady rain the springs of the mountain were broken up; every glen
gushed water like a cistern; every stream was in high spate, and had
filled and overflowed its channel. During our night tramps, it was
solemn to hear the voice of them below in the valleys, now booming like
thunder, now with an angry cry. I could well understand the story of the
Water Kelpie, that demon of the streams, who is fabled to keep wailing
and roaring at the ford until the coming of the doomed traveller. Alan I
saw believed it, or half believed it; and when the cry of the river rose
more than usually sharp, I was little surprised (though, of course, I
would still be shocked) to see him cross himself in the manner of the
Catholics.

During all these horrid wanderings we had no familiarity, scarcely even
that of speech. The truth is that I was sickening for my grave, which
is my best excuse. But besides that I was of an unforgiving disposition
from my birth, slow to take offence, slower to forget it, and now
incensed both against my companion and myself. For the best part of two
days he was unweariedly kind; silent, indeed, but always ready to help,
and always hoping (as I could very well see) that my displeasure would
blow by. For the same length of time I stayed in myself, nursing my
anger, roughly refusing his services, and passing him over with my eyes
as if he had been a bush or a stone.

The second night, or rather the peep of the third day, found us upon a
very open hill, so that we could not follow our usual plan and lie down
immediately to eat and sleep. Before we had reached a place of shelter,
the grey had come pretty clear, for though it still rained, the clouds
ran higher; and Alan, looking in my face, showed some marks of concern.

"Ye had better let me take your pack," said he, for perhaps the ninth
time since we had parted from the scout beside Loch Rannoch.

"I do very well, I thank you," said I, as cold as ice.

Alan flushed darkly. "I'll not offer it again," he said. "I'm not a
patient man, David."

"I never said you were," said I, which was exactly the rude, silly
speech of a boy of ten.

Alan made no answer at the time, but his conduct answered for him.
Henceforth, it is to be thought, he quite forgave himself for the affair
at Cluny's; cocked his hat again, walked jauntily, whistled airs, and
looked at me upon one side with a provoking smile.

The third night we were to pass through the western end of the country
of Balquhidder. It came clear and cold, with a touch in the air like
frost, and a northerly wind that blew the clouds away and made the stars
bright. The streams were full, of course, and still made a great noise
among the hills; but I observed that Alan thought no more upon the
Kelpie, and was in high good spirits. As for me, the change of weather
came too late; I had lain in the mire so long that (as the Bible has it)
my very clothes "abhorred me." I was dead weary, deadly sick and full
of pains and shiverings; the chill of the wind went through me, and the
sound of it confused my ears. In this poor state I had to bear from
my companion something in the nature of a persecution. He spoke a good
deal, and never without a taunt. "Whig" was the best name he had to give
me. "Here," he would say, "here's a dub for ye to jump, my Whiggie! I
ken you're a fine jumper!" And so on; all the time with a gibing voice
and face.

I knew it was my own doing, and no one else's; but I was too miserable
to repent. I felt I could drag myself but little farther; pretty soon, I
must lie down and die on these wet mountains like a sheep or a fox, and
my bones must whiten there like the bones of a beast. My head was light
perhaps; but I began to love the prospect, I began to glory in the
thought of such a death, alone in the desert, with the wild eagles
besieging my last moments. Alan would repent then, I thought; he would
remember, when I was dead, how much he owed me, and the remembrance
would be torture. So I went like a sick, silly, and bad-hearted
schoolboy, feeding my anger against a fellow-man, when I would have
been better on my knees, crying on God for mercy. And at each of Alan's
taunts, I hugged myself. "Ah!" thinks I to myself, "I have a better
taunt in readiness; when I lie down and die, you will feel it like a
buffet in your face; ah, what a revenge! ah, how you will regret your
ingratitude and cruelty!"

All the while, I was growing worse and worse. Once I had fallen, my leg
simply doubling under me, and this had struck Alan for the moment; but I
was afoot so briskly, and set off again with such a natural manner,
that he soon forgot the incident. Flushes of heat went over me, and then
spasms of shuddering. The stitch in my side was hardly bearable. At last
I began to feel that I could trail myself no farther: and with that,
there came on me all at once the wish to have it out with Alan, let my
anger blaze, and be done with my life in a more sudden manner. He had
just called me "Whig." I stopped.

"Mr. Stewart," said I, in a voice that quivered like a fiddle-string,
"you are older than I am, and should know your manners. Do you think
it either very wise or very witty to cast my politics in my teeth? I
thought, where folk differed, it was the part of gentlemen to differ
civilly; and if I did not, I may tell you I could find a better taunt
than some of yours."

Alan had stopped opposite to me, his hat cocked, his hands in his
breeches pockets, his head a little on one side. He listened, smiling
evilly, as I could see by the starlight; and when I had done he began to
whistle a Jacobite air. It was the air made in mockery of General Cope's
defeat at Preston Pans:

     "Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?
     And are your drums a-beatin' yet?"

And it came in my mind that Alan, on the day of that battle, had been
engaged upon the royal side.

"Why do ye take that air, Mr. Stewart?" said I. "Is that to remind me
you have been beaten on both sides?"

The air stopped on Alan's lips. "David!" said he.

"But it's time these manners ceased," I continued; "and I mean you shall
henceforth speak civilly of my King and my good friends the Campbells."

"I am a Stewart--" began Alan.

"O!" says I, "I ken ye bear a king's name. But you are to remember,
since I have been in the Highlands, I have seen a good many of those
that bear it; and the best I can say of them is this, that they would be
none the worse of washing."

"Do you know that you insult me?" said Alan, very low.

"I am sorry for that," said I, "for I am not done; and if you distaste
the sermon, I doubt the pirliecue* will please you as little. You have
been chased in the field by the grown men of my party; it seems a poor
kind of pleasure to out-face a boy. Both the Campbells and the Whigs
have beaten you; you have run before them like a hare. It behoves you to
speak of them as of your betters."

     * A second sermon.

Alan stood quite still, the tails of his great-coat clapping behind him
in the wind.

"This is a pity," he said at last. "There are things said that cannot be
passed over."

"I never asked you to," said I. "I am as ready as yourself."

"Ready?" said he.

"Ready," I repeated. "I am no blower and boaster like some that I could
name. Come on!" And drawing my sword, I fell on guard as Alan himself
had taught me.

"David!" he cried. "Are ye daft? I cannae draw upon ye, David. It's
fair murder."

"That was your look-out when you insulted me," said I.

"It's the truth!" cried Alan, and he stood for a moment, wringing his
mouth in his hand like a man in sore perplexity. "It's the bare truth,"
he said, and drew his sword. But before I could touch his blade with
mine, he had thrown it from him and fallen to the ground. "Na, na," he
kept saying, "na, na--I cannae, I cannae."

At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me; and I found myself
only sick, and sorry, and blank, and wondering at myself. I would have
given the world to take back what I had said; but a word once spoken,
who can recapture it? I minded me of all Alan's kindness and courage in
the past, how he had helped and cheered and borne with me in our evil
days; and then recalled my own insults, and saw that I had lost for ever
that doughty friend. At the same time, the sickness that hung upon
me seemed to redouble, and the pang in my side was like a sword for
sharpness. I thought I must have swooned where I stood.

This it was that gave me a thought. No apology could blot out what I had
said; it was needless to think of one, none could cover the offence; but
where an apology was vain, a mere cry for help might bring Alan back to
my side. I put my pride away from me. "Alan!" I said; "if ye cannae help
me, I must just die here."

He started up sitting, and looked at me.

"It's true," said I. "I'm by with it. O, let me get into the bield of a
house--I'll can die there easier." I had no need to pretend; whether I
chose or not, I spoke in a weeping voice that would have melted a heart
of stone.

"Can ye walk?" asked Alan.

"No," said I, "not without help. This last hour my legs have been
fainting under me; I've a stitch in my side like a red-hot iron; I
cannae breathe right. If I die, ye'll can forgive me, Alan? In my heart,
I liked ye fine--even when I was the angriest."

"Wheesht, wheesht!" cried Alan. "Dinna say that! David man, ye ken--" He
shut his mouth upon a sob. "Let me get my arm about ye," he continued;
"that's the way! Now lean upon me hard. Gude kens where there's a house!
We're in Balwhidder, too; there should be no want of houses, no, nor
friends' houses here. Do ye gang easier so, Davie?"

"Ay," said I, "I can be doing this way;" and I pressed his arm with my
hand.

Again he came near sobbing. "Davie," said he, "I'm no a right man at
all; I have neither sense nor kindness; I could nae remember ye were
just a bairn, I couldnae see ye were dying on your feet; Davie, ye'll
have to try and forgive me."

"O man, let's say no more about it!" said I. "We're neither one of us
to mend the other--that's the truth! We must just bear and forbear, man
Alan. O, but my stitch is sore! Is there nae house?"

"I'll find a house to ye, David," he said, stoutly. "We'll follow down
the burn, where there's bound to be houses. My poor man, will ye no be
better on my back?"

"O, Alan," says I, "and me a good twelve inches taller?"

"Ye're no such a thing," cried Alan, with a start. "There may be a
trifling matter of an inch or two; I'm no saying I'm just exactly what
ye would call a tall man, whatever; and I dare say," he added, his voice
tailing off in a laughable manner, "now when I come to think of it, I
dare say ye'll be just about right. Ay, it'll be a foot, or near hand;
or may be even mair!"

It was sweet and laughable to hear Alan eat his words up in the fear of
some fresh quarrel. I could have laughed, had not my stitch caught me so
hard; but if I had laughed, I think I must have wept too.

"Alan," cried I, "what makes ye so good to me? What makes ye care for
such a thankless fellow?"

"'Deed, and I don't know" said Alan. "For just precisely what I thought
I liked about ye, was that ye never quarrelled:--and now I like ye
better!"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: After this squabble, Alan and Davie set out east, on the other side of Loch Errocht , accompanied by one of Cluny's servants as a guide. Things are awkward: Davie is angry at Alan for taking his money and losing it, and Alan is ashamed and angry at Davie for taking it so hard. With their friendship strained, Davie thinks more and more about leaving Alan behind - a thought that also makes him feel disloyal and guilty. Finally, Alan can't take it anymore. He tells Davie he's sorry, then asks if Davie has anything to say in return. Davie says no, he has nothing more to say. Alan is clearly hurt and asks if he was really the only one to blame. Yep, replies Davie: it's all Alan's fault. Alan says that Davie once suggested that they part , and he wants to know if that's what he wants now. Because this is exactly what Davie had been thinking, he gets super defensive and strikes out at Alan, saying that Alan's the one who brought this all up in the first place, so he should just let it lie. They resume their earlier silence. The next day, their guide tells them how to get to Forth river, on a route that unfortunately brings them through the land of the Glenorchy Campbells. The guide argues that that's actually the safest place for Alan: the last place the soldiers will expect to find him is in Campbell country. So off Davie and Alan go together. They travel for three days pretty much entirely in silence, through hard country and bad weather. At the dawn of the third day, they find themselves on an exposed hill. Alan, worried about Davie's health, offers to carry his pack for him. Davie says he's fine in a really passive-aggressive way. Alan is so offended at his bratty conduct that he stops feeling ashamed about taking Davie's money and starts singing and whistling like he used to. Alan takes to taunting Davie, calling him "Whig" and mocking him for his weakness. Davie is yet again feeling sick, and also guilty for behaving like a child, but he's too stubborn to apologize. So he takes to imagining himself dying and picturing how bad Alan will feel then! Things come to a head when Davie is feeling too awful to continue. Alan's just called him Whig and Davie stops on the road and says it's ungentlemanly to tease someone about his politics. Alan responds by singing a mocking song about the defeat of General John Cope at the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745. Davie tells Alan he better start speaking well of Davie's king and his good friends the Campbells . Them's fighting words! Davie makes it worse by implying that Alan's family, the Stewarts, could stand to bathe more often, and that Alan himself keeps having to run away from both the Campbells and the Whigs. Alan says he can't forgive Davie for saying such terrible things. Davie's like, right! I will now draw my sword on you and we shall duel! Alan doesn't want to fight Davie, even though he's so insulted, because they're so unfairly matched that it would be like murder. All the fight drains out of Davie at this. Alan's been so good to him, and Davie feels bad for taking things so far. Davie knows that Alan won't be able to accept just an apology for insults of this magnitude. So he appeals to Alan's pity: he claims that he's dying. And actually, he's not that far from the truth. He begs Alan to help him to a nearby house so he can die inside. Alan's immediately taken in. He begs Davie to forgive him for not noticing how badly off he was, since Davie is just a "bairn" . It's actually really sweet when they make up. Davie asks Alan how Alan can be so good to Davie when he's such a worthless guy? And Alan answers that he'd always liked Davie because he never argues, but now that they have fought, he likes Davie even better.


prompt:
Chapter: At the door of the first house we came to, Alan knocked, which was of
no very safe enterprise in such a part of the Highlands as the Braes of
Balquhidder. No great clan held rule there; it was filled and disputed
by small septs, and broken remnants, and what they call "chiefless
folk," driven into the wild country about the springs of Forth and Teith
by the advance of the Campbells. Here were Stewarts and Maclarens, which
came to the same thing, for the Maclarens followed Alan's chief in war,
and made but one clan with Appin. Here, too, were many of that old,
proscribed, nameless, red-handed clan of the Macgregors. They had always
been ill-considered, and now worse than ever, having credit with no side
or party in the whole country of Scotland. Their chief, Macgregor of
Macgregor, was in exile; the more immediate leader of that part of them
about Balquhidder, James More, Rob Roy's eldest son, lay waiting his
trial in Edinburgh Castle; they were in ill-blood with Highlander and
Lowlander, with the Grahames, the Maclarens, and the Stewarts; and Alan,
who took up the quarrel of any friend, however distant, was extremely
wishful to avoid them.

Chance served us very well; for it was a household of Maclarens that we
found, where Alan was not only welcome for his name's sake but known
by reputation. Here then I was got to bed without delay, and a doctor
fetched, who found me in a sorry plight. But whether because he was a
very good doctor, or I a very young, strong man, I lay bedridden for no
more than a week, and before a month I was able to take the road again
with a good heart.

All this time Alan would not leave me though I often pressed him, and
indeed his foolhardiness in staying was a common subject of outcry with
the two or three friends that were let into the secret. He hid by day
in a hole of the braes under a little wood; and at night, when the coast
was clear, would come into the house to visit me. I need not say if I
was pleased to see him; Mrs. Maclaren, our hostess, thought nothing good
enough for such a guest; and as Duncan Dhu (which was the name of our
host) had a pair of pipes in his house, and was much of a lover of
music, this time of my recovery was quite a festival, and we commonly
turned night into day.

The soldiers let us be; although once a party of two companies and some
dragoons went by in the bottom of the valley, where I could see them
through the window as I lay in bed. What was much more astonishing, no
magistrate came near me, and there was no question put of whence I came
or whither I was going; and in that time of excitement, I was as free of
all inquiry as though I had lain in a desert. Yet my presence was known
before I left to all the people in Balquhidder and the adjacent parts;
many coming about the house on visits and these (after the custom of the
country) spreading the news among their neighbours. The bills, too, had
now been printed. There was one pinned near the foot of my bed, where
I could read my own not very flattering portrait and, in larger
characters, the amount of the blood money that had been set upon my
life. Duncan Dhu and the rest that knew that I had come there in Alan's
company, could have entertained no doubt of who I was; and many others
must have had their guess. For though I had changed my clothes, I could
not change my age or person; and Lowland boys of eighteen were not so
rife in these parts of the world, and above all about that time, that
they could fail to put one thing with another, and connect me with the
bill. So it was, at least. Other folk keep a secret among two or three
near friends, and somehow it leaks out; but among these clansmen, it is
told to a whole countryside, and they will keep it for a century.

There was but one thing happened worth narrating; and that is the visit
I had of Robin Oig, one of the sons of the notorious Rob Roy. He was
sought upon all sides on a charge of carrying a young woman from
Balfron and marrying her (as was alleged) by force; yet he stepped about
Balquhidder like a gentleman in his own walled policy. It was he who had
shot James Maclaren at the plough stilts, a quarrel never satisfied; yet
he walked into the house of his blood enemies as a rider* might into a
     public inn.* Commercial traveller.

Duncan had time to pass me word of who it was; and we looked at one
another in concern. You should understand, it was then close upon the
time of Alan's coming; the two were little likely to agree; and yet if
we sent word or sought to make a signal, it was sure to arouse suspicion
in a man under so dark a cloud as the Macgregor.

He came in with a great show of civility, but like a man among
inferiors; took off his bonnet to Mrs. Maclaren, but clapped it on his
head again to speak to Duncan; and having thus set himself (as he would
have thought) in a proper light, came to my bedside and bowed.

"I am given to know, sir," says he, "that your name is Balfour."

"They call me David Balfour," said I, "at your service."

"I would give ye my name in return, sir," he replied, "but it's one
somewhat blown upon of late days; and it'll perhaps suffice if I tell
ye that I am own brother to James More Drummond or Macgregor, of whom ye
will scarce have failed to hear."

"No, sir," said I, a little alarmed; "nor yet of your father,
Macgregor-Campbell." And I sat up and bowed in bed; for I thought best
to compliment him, in case he was proud of having had an outlaw to his
father.

He bowed in return. "But what I am come to say, sir," he went on, "is
this. In the year '45, my brother raised a part of the 'Gregara' and
marched six companies to strike a stroke for the good side; and the
surgeon that marched with our clan and cured my brother's leg when it
was broken in the brush at Preston Pans, was a gentleman of the same
name precisely as yourself. He was brother to Balfour of Baith; and if
you are in any reasonable degree of nearness one of that gentleman's
kin, I have come to put myself and my people at your command."

You are to remember that I knew no more of my descent than any cadger's
dog; my uncle, to be sure, had prated of some of our high connections,
but nothing to the present purpose; and there was nothing left me but
that bitter disgrace of owning that I could not tell.

Robin told me shortly he was sorry he had put himself about, turned his
back upon me without a sign of salutation, and as he went towards the
door, I could hear him telling Duncan that I was "only some kinless loon
that didn't know his own father." Angry as I was at these words, and
ashamed of my own ignorance, I could scarce keep from smiling that a
man who was under the lash of the law (and was indeed hanged some three
years later) should be so nice as to the descent of his acquaintances.

Just in the door, he met Alan coming in; and the two drew back and
looked at each other like strange dogs. They were neither of them big
men, but they seemed fairly to swell out with pride. Each wore a sword,
and by a movement of his haunch, thrust clear the hilt of it, so that it
might be the more readily grasped and the blade drawn.

"Mr. Stewart, I am thinking," says Robin.

"Troth, Mr. Macgregor, it's not a name to be ashamed of," answered Alan.

"I did not know ye were in my country, sir," says Robin.

"It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of my friends the
Maclarens," says Alan.

"That's a kittle point," returned the other. "There may be two words to
say to that. But I think I will have heard that you are a man of your
sword?"

"Unless ye were born deaf, Mr. Macgregor, ye will have heard a good deal
more than that," says Alan. "I am not the only man that can draw steel
in Appin; and when my kinsman and captain, Ardshiel, had a talk with a
gentleman of your name, not so many years back, I could never hear that
the Macgregor had the best of it."

"Do ye mean my father, sir?" says Robin.

"Well, I wouldnae wonder," said Alan. "The gentleman I have in my mind
had the ill-taste to clap Campbell to his name."

"My father was an old man," returned Robin.

"The match was unequal. You and me would make a better pair, sir."

"I was thinking that," said Alan.

I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these
fighting cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion. But when
that word was uttered, it was a case of now or never; and Duncan, with
something of a white face to be sure, thrust himself between.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I will have been thinking of a very different
matter, whateffer. Here are my pipes, and here are you two gentlemen who
are baith acclaimed pipers. It's an auld dispute which one of ye's the
best. Here will be a braw chance to settle it."

"Why, sir," said Alan, still addressing Robin, from whom indeed he had
not so much as shifted his eyes, nor yet Robin from him, "why, sir,"
says Alan, "I think I will have heard some sough* of the sort. Have ye
music, as folk say? Are ye a bit of a piper?"

     * Rumour.

"I can pipe like a Macrimmon!" cries Robin.

"And that is a very bold word," quoth Alan.

"I have made bolder words good before now," returned Robin, "and that
against better adversaries."

"It is easy to try that," says Alan.

Duncan Dhu made haste to bring out the pair of pipes that was his
principal possession, and to set before his guests a mutton-ham and a
bottle of that drink which they call Athole brose, and which is made of
old whiskey, strained honey and sweet cream, slowly beaten together in
the right order and proportion. The two enemies were still on the very
breach of a quarrel; but down they sat, one upon each side of the peat
fire, with a mighty show of politeness. Maclaren pressed them to taste
his mutton-ham and "the wife's brose," reminding them the wife was out
of Athole and had a name far and wide for her skill in that confection.
But Robin put aside these hospitalities as bad for the breath.

"I would have ye to remark, sir," said Alan, "that I havenae broken
bread for near upon ten hours, which will be worse for the breath than
any brose in Scotland."

"I will take no advantages, Mr. Stewart," replied Robin. "Eat and drink;
I'll follow you."

Each ate a small portion of the ham and drank a glass of the brose to
Mrs. Maclaren; and then after a great number of civilities, Robin took
the pipes and played a little spring in a very ranting manner.

"Ay, ye can blow" said Alan; and taking the instrument from his rival,
he first played the same spring in a manner identical with Robin's; and
then wandered into variations, which, as he went on, he decorated with
a perfect flight of grace-notes, such as pipers love, and call the
"warblers."

I had been pleased with Robin's playing, Alan's ravished me.

"That's no very bad, Mr. Stewart," said the rival, "but ye show a poor
device in your warblers."

"Me!" cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. "I give ye the lie."

"Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, then," said Robin, "that ye
seek to change them for the sword?"

"And that's very well said, Mr. Macgregor," returned Alan; "and in the
meantime" (laying a strong accent on the word) "I take back the lie. I
appeal to Duncan."

"Indeed, ye need appeal to naebody," said Robin. "Ye're a far better
judge than any Maclaren in Balquhidder: for it's a God's truth that
you're a very creditable piper for a Stewart. Hand me the pipes." Alan
did as he asked; and Robin proceeded to imitate and correct some part of
Alan's variations, which it seemed that he remembered perfectly.

"Ay, ye have music," said Alan, gloomily.

"And now be the judge yourself, Mr. Stewart," said Robin; and taking up
the variations from the beginning, he worked them throughout to so new a
purpose, with such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy and
so quick a knack in the grace-notes, that I was amazed to hear him.

As for Alan, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat and gnawed his
fingers, like a man under some deep affront. "Enough!" he cried. "Ye can
blow the pipes--make the most of that." And he made as if to rise.

But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for silence, and struck
into the slow measure of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in
itself, and nobly played; but it seems, besides, it was a piece peculiar
to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan. The first notes
were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; when the time
quickened, he seemed to grow restless in his seat; and long before that
piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger died from him, and he
had no thought but for the music.

"Robin Oig," he said, when it was done, "ye are a great piper. I am not
fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye. Body of me! ye have mair music
in your sporran than I have in my head! And though it still sticks in
my mind that I could maybe show ye another of it with the cold steel,
I warn ye beforehand--it'll no be fair! It would go against my heart to
haggle a man that can blow the pipes as you can!"

Thereupon that quarrel was made up; all night long the brose was going
and the pipes changing hands; and the day had come pretty bright, and
the three men were none the better for what they had been taking, before
Robin as much as thought upon the road.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Here's the problem with the region of Balquhidder: unlike Mamore or Appin , this is an area that doesn't belong to any single clan in particular. There are lots of different smaller groups struggling amongst one another. Luckily, the door Alan knocks on first belongs to a member of the Maclaren family, who are allied with the Stewarts. It's a man named Duncan Dhu. Poor Davie is immediately put to bed while they call a doctor. He's laid up for a month before he can go out on the road again. Davie is surprised by Alan's loyalty in staying with him until he's healed enough to travel. Here's something interesting: everyone in the neighborhood knows that the government is looking for Davie. After all, there aren't that many young Lowland guys traveling with Alan Breck Stewart. But no one turns him in. Not much happens during Davie's stay in Balquhidder, except that he meets Robin Oig, a son of Rob Roy. Robin Oig comes to the Maclaren household to tell Davie that he has heard that Davie's name is Balfour. In the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745, Robin Oig's brother broke his leg, and the surgeon who fixed it was also named Balfour. As a result, says Robin, if Davie is a close relative of that Balfour, Robin is there to put himself at Davie's service. Davie is embarrassed to admit that he has no idea if he's any relative of that Doctor Balfour. Robin washes his hands of Davie and walks out the door. On his way out, Robin bumps into Alan. They size each other up and exchange a few insults about Campbells and swordsmanship. It looks like it's going to come to a fight, so Duncan Dhu, the owner of the house, jumps in. Duncan suggests that they have a pipe-playing contest. They play back and forth for a bit, each talking smack about the other's performance, until Robin Oig finally manages to win the day by playing a tune beloved by the Appin Stewarts. Alan hears the song and is so moved that he tells Robin, "I am not fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye" . Thus, the quarrel between Alan and Robin Oig is resolved.


prompt:
Chapter: The month, as I have said, was not yet out, but it was already far
through August, and beautiful warm weather, with every sign of an early
and great harvest, when I was pronounced able for my journey. Our money
was now run to so low an ebb that we must think first of all on speed;
for if we came not soon to Mr. Rankeillor's, or if when we came there he
should fail to help me, we must surely starve. In Alan's view, besides,
the hunt must have now greatly slackened; and the line of the Forth and
even Stirling Bridge, which is the main pass over that river, would be
watched with little interest.

"It's a chief principle in military affairs," said he, "to go where
ye are least expected. Forth is our trouble; ye ken the saying, 'Forth
bridles the wild Hielandman.' Well, if we seek to creep round about
the head of that river and come down by Kippen or Balfron, it's just
precisely there that they'll be looking to lay hands on us. But if we
stave on straight to the auld Brig of Stirling, I'll lay my sword they
let us pass unchallenged."

The first night, accordingly, we pushed to the house of a Maclaren in
Strathire, a friend of Duncan's, where we slept the twenty-first of the
month, and whence we set forth again about the fall of night to make
another easy stage. The twenty-second we lay in a heather bush on the
hillside in Uam Var, within view of a herd of deer, the happiest ten
hours of sleep in a fine, breathing sunshine and on bone-dry ground,
that I have ever tasted. That night we struck Allan Water, and followed
it down; and coming to the edge of the hills saw the whole Carse of
Stirling underfoot, as flat as a pancake, with the town and castle on a
hill in the midst of it, and the moon shining on the Links of Forth.

"Now," said Alan, "I kenna if ye care, but ye're in your own land again.
We passed the Hieland Line in the first hour; and now if we could but
pass yon crooked water, we might cast our bonnets in the air."

In Allan Water, near by where it falls into the Forth, we found a little
sandy islet, overgrown with burdock, butterbur and the like low plants,
that would just cover us if we lay flat. Here it was we made our camp,
within plain view of Stirling Castle, whence we could hear the drums
beat as some part of the garrison paraded. Shearers worked all day in
a field on one side of the river, and we could hear the stones going
on the hooks and the voices and even the words of the men talking. It
behoved to lie close and keep silent. But the sand of the little isle
was sun-warm, the green plants gave us shelter for our heads, we had
food and drink in plenty; and to crown all, we were within sight of
safety.

As soon as the shearers quit their work and the dusk began to fall,
we waded ashore and struck for the Bridge of Stirling, keeping to the
fields and under the field fences.

The bridge is close under the castle hill, an old, high, narrow bridge
with pinnacles along the parapet; and you may conceive with how much
interest I looked upon it, not only as a place famous in history, but as
the very doors of salvation to Alan and myself. The moon was not yet up
when we came there; a few lights shone along the front of the fortress,
and lower down a few lighted windows in the town; but it was all mighty
still, and there seemed to be no guard upon the passage.

I was for pushing straight across; but Alan was more wary.

"It looks unco' quiet," said he; "but for all that we'll lie down here
cannily behind a dyke, and make sure."

So we lay for about a quarter of an hour, whiles whispering, whiles
lying still and hearing nothing earthly but the washing of the water on
the piers. At last there came by an old, hobbling woman with a crutch
stick; who first stopped a little, close to where we lay, and bemoaned
herself and the long way she had travelled; and then set forth again up
the steep spring of the bridge. The woman was so little, and the night
still so dark, that we soon lost sight of her; only heard the sound of
her steps, and her stick, and a cough that she had by fits, draw slowly
farther away.

"She's bound to be across now," I whispered.

"Na," said Alan, "her foot still sounds boss* upon the bridge."

     * Hollow.

And just then--"Who goes?" cried a voice, and we heard the butt of
a musket rattle on the stones. I must suppose the sentry had been
sleeping, so that had we tried, we might have passed unseen; but he was
awake now, and the chance forfeited.

"This'll never do," said Alan. "This'll never, never do for us, David."

And without another word, he began to crawl away through the fields; and
a little after, being well out of eye-shot, got to his feet again, and
struck along a road that led to the eastward. I could not conceive what
he was doing; and indeed I was so sharply cut by the disappointment,
that I was little likely to be pleased with anything. A moment back
and I had seen myself knocking at Mr. Rankeillor's door to claim my
inheritance, like a hero in a ballad; and here was I back again, a
wandering, hunted blackguard, on the wrong side of Forth.

"Well?" said I.

"Well," said Alan, "what would ye have? They're none such fools as I
took them for. We have still the Forth to pass, Davie--weary fall the
rains that fed and the hillsides that guided it!"

"And why go east?" said I.

"Ou, just upon the chance!" said he. "If we cannae pass the river, we'll
have to see what we can do for the firth."

"There are fords upon the river, and none upon the firth," said I.

"To be sure there are fords, and a bridge forbye," quoth Alan; "and of
what service, when they are watched?"

"Well," said I, "but a river can be swum."

"By them that have the skill of it," returned he; "but I have yet to
hear that either you or me is much of a hand at that exercise; and for
my own part, I swim like a stone."

"I'm not up to you in talking back, Alan," I said; "but I can see we're
making bad worse. If it's hard to pass a river, it stands to reason it
must be worse to pass a sea."

"But there's such a thing as a boat," says Alan, "or I'm the more
deceived."

"Ay, and such a thing as money," says I. "But for us that have neither
one nor other, they might just as well not have been invented."

"Ye think so?" said Alan.

"I do that," said I.

"David," says he, "ye're a man of small invention and less faith. But
let me set my wits upon the hone, and if I cannae beg, borrow, nor yet
steal a boat, I'll make one!"

"I think I see ye!" said I. "And what's more than all that: if ye pass a
bridge, it can tell no tales; but if we pass the firth, there's the boat
on the wrong side--somebody must have brought it--the country-side will
all be in a bizz---"

"Man!" cried Alan, "if I make a boat, I'll make a body to take it back
again! So deave me with no more of your nonsense, but walk (for that's
what you've got to do)--and let Alan think for ye."

All night, then, we walked through the north side of the Carse under
the high line of the Ochil mountains; and by Alloa and Clackmannan and
Culross, all of which we avoided: and about ten in the morning, mighty
hungry and tired, came to the little clachan of Limekilns. This is a
place that sits near in by the water-side, and looks across the Hope to
the town of the Queensferry. Smoke went up from both of these, and from
other villages and farms upon all hands. The fields were being reaped;
two ships lay anchored, and boats were coming and going on the Hope.
It was altogether a right pleasant sight to me; and I could not take
my fill of gazing at these comfortable, green, cultivated hills and the
busy people both of the field and sea.

For all that, there was Mr. Rankeillor's house on the south shore, where
I had no doubt wealth awaited me; and here was I upon the north, clad in
poor enough attire of an outlandish fashion, with three silver shillings
left to me of all my fortune, a price set upon my head, and an outlawed
man for my sole company.

"O, Alan!" said I, "to think of it! Over there, there's all that heart
could want waiting me; and the birds go over, and the boats go over--all
that please can go, but just me only! O, man, but it's a heart-break!"

In Limekilns we entered a small change-house, which we only knew to be a
public by the wand over the door, and bought some bread and cheese from
a good-looking lass that was the servant. This we carried with us in a
bundle, meaning to sit and eat it in a bush of wood on the sea-shore,
that we saw some third part of a mile in front. As we went, I kept
looking across the water and sighing to myself; and though I took no
heed of it, Alan had fallen into a muse. At last he stopped in the way.

"Did ye take heed of the lass we bought this of?" says he, tapping on
the bread and cheese.

"To be sure," said I, "and a bonny lass she was."

"Ye thought that?" cries he. "Man, David, that's good news."

"In the name of all that's wonderful, why so?" says I. "What good can
that do?"

"Well," said Alan, with one of his droll looks, "I was rather in hopes
it would maybe get us that boat."

"If it were the other way about, it would be liker it," said I.

"That's all that you ken, ye see," said Alan. "I don't want the lass to
fall in love with ye, I want her to be sorry for ye, David; to which end
there is no manner of need that she should take you for a beauty. Let me
see" (looking me curiously over). "I wish ye were a wee thing paler; but
apart from that ye'll do fine for my purpose--ye have a fine, hang-dog,
rag-and-tatter, clappermaclaw kind of a look to ye, as if ye had
stolen the coat from a potato-bogle. Come; right about, and back to the
change-house for that boat of ours."

I followed him, laughing.

"David Balfour," said he, "ye're a very funny gentleman by your way of
it, and this is a very funny employ for ye, no doubt. For all that, if
ye have any affection for my neck (to say nothing of your own) ye will
perhaps be kind enough to take this matter responsibly. I am going to
do a bit of play-acting, the bottom ground of which is just exactly as
serious as the gallows for the pair of us. So bear it, if ye please, in
mind, and conduct yourself according."

"Well, well," said I, "have it as you will."

As we got near the clachan, he made me take his arm and hang upon it
like one almost helpless with weariness; and by the time he pushed
open the change-house door, he seemed to be half carrying me. The maid
appeared surprised (as well she might be) at our speedy return; but
Alan had no words to spare for her in explanation, helped me to a chair,
called for a tass of brandy with which he fed me in little sips,
and then breaking up the bread and cheese helped me to eat it like
a nursery-lass; the whole with that grave, concerned, affectionate
countenance, that might have imposed upon a judge. It was small wonder
if the maid were taken with the picture we presented, of a poor, sick,
overwrought lad and his most tender comrade. She drew quite near, and
stood leaning with her back on the next table.

"What's like wrong with him?" said she at last.

Alan turned upon her, to my great wonder, with a kind of fury. "Wrong?"
cries he. "He's walked more hundreds of miles than he has hairs upon his
chin, and slept oftener in wet heather than dry sheets. Wrong, quo' she!
Wrong enough, I would think! Wrong, indeed!" and he kept grumbling to
himself as he fed me, like a man ill-pleased.

"He's young for the like of that," said the maid.

"Ower young," said Alan, with his back to her.

"He would be better riding," says she.

"And where could I get a horse to him?" cried Alan, turning on her with
the same appearance of fury. "Would ye have me steal?"

I thought this roughness would have sent her off in dudgeon, as indeed
it closed her mouth for the time. But my companion knew very well what
he was doing; and for as simple as he was in some things of life, had a
great fund of roguishness in such affairs as these.

"Ye neednae tell me," she said at last--"ye're gentry."

"Well," said Alan, softened a little (I believe against his will) by
this artless comment, "and suppose we were? Did ever you hear that
gentrice put money in folk's pockets?"

She sighed at this, as if she were herself some disinherited great lady.
"No," says she, "that's true indeed."

I was all this while chafing at the part I played, and sitting
tongue-tied between shame and merriment; but somehow at this I could
hold in no longer, and bade Alan let me be, for I was better already. My
voice stuck in my throat, for I ever hated to take part in lies; but my
very embarrassment helped on the plot, for the lass no doubt set down my
husky voice to sickness and fatigue.

"Has he nae friends?" said she, in a tearful voice.

"That has he so!" cried Alan, "if we could but win to them!--friends and
rich friends, beds to lie in, food to eat, doctors to see to him--and
here he must tramp in the dubs and sleep in the heather like a
beggarman."

"And why that?" says the lass.

"My dear," said Alan, "I cannae very safely say; but I'll tell ye what
I'll do instead," says he, "I'll whistle ye a bit tune." And with that
he leaned pretty far over the table, and in a mere breath of a whistle,
but with a wonderful pretty sentiment, gave her a few bars of "Charlie
is my darling."

"Wheesht," says she, and looked over her shoulder to the door.

"That's it," said Alan.

"And him so young!" cries the lass.

"He's old enough to----" and Alan struck his forefinger on the back part
of his neck, meaning that I was old enough to lose my head.

"It would be a black shame," she cried, flushing high.

"It's what will be, though," said Alan, "unless we manage the better."

At this the lass turned and ran out of that part of the house, leaving
us alone together. Alan in high good humour at the furthering of his
schemes, and I in bitter dudgeon at being called a Jacobite and treated
like a child.

"Alan," I cried, "I can stand no more of this."

"Ye'll have to sit it then, Davie," said he. "For if ye upset the pot
now, ye may scrape your own life out of the fire, but Alan Breck is a
dead man."

This was so true that I could only groan; and even my groan served
Alan's purpose, for it was overheard by the lass as she came flying in
again with a dish of white puddings and a bottle of strong ale.

"Poor lamb!" says she, and had no sooner set the meat before us, than
she touched me on the shoulder with a little friendly touch, as much as
to bid me cheer up. Then she told us to fall to, and there would be no
more to pay; for the inn was her own, or at least her father's, and he
was gone for the day to Pittencrieff. We waited for no second bidding,
for bread and cheese is but cold comfort and the puddings smelt
excellently well; and while we sat and ate, she took up that same place
by the next table, looking on, and thinking, and frowning to herself,
and drawing the string of her apron through her hand.

"I'm thinking ye have rather a long tongue," she said at last to Alan.

"Ay" said Alan; "but ye see I ken the folk I speak to."

"I would never betray ye," said she, "if ye mean that."

"No," said he, "ye're not that kind. But I'll tell ye what ye would do,
ye would help."

"I couldnae," said she, shaking her head. "Na, I couldnae."

"No," said he, "but if ye could?"

She answered him nothing.

"Look here, my lass," said Alan, "there are boats in the Kingdom of
Fife, for I saw two (no less) upon the beach, as I came in by your
town's end. Now if we could have the use of a boat to pass under cloud
of night into Lothian, and some secret, decent kind of a man to bring
that boat back again and keep his counsel, there would be two souls
saved--mine to all likelihood--his to a dead surety. If we lack that
boat, we have but three shillings left in this wide world; and where
to go, and how to do, and what other place there is for us except the
chains of a gibbet--I give you my naked word, I kenna! Shall we go
wanting, lassie? Are ye to lie in your warm bed and think upon us, when
the wind gowls in the chimney and the rain tirls on the roof? Are ye to
eat your meat by the cheeks of a red fire, and think upon this poor sick
lad of mine, biting his finger ends on a blae muir for cauld and hunger?
Sick or sound, he must aye be moving; with the death grapple at his
throat he must aye be trailing in the rain on the lang roads; and when
he gants his last on a rickle of cauld stanes, there will be nae friends
near him but only me and God."

At this appeal, I could see the lass was in great trouble of mind,
being tempted to help us, and yet in some fear she might be helping
malefactors; and so now I determined to step in myself and to allay her
scruples with a portion of the truth.

"Did ever you hear," said I, "of Mr. Rankeillor of the Ferry?"

"Rankeillor the writer?" said she. "I daur say that!"

"Well," said I, "it's to his door that I am bound, so you may judge by
that if I am an ill-doer; and I will tell you more, that though I am
indeed, by a dreadful error, in some peril of my life, King George has
no truer friend in all Scotland than myself."

Her face cleared up mightily at this, although Alan's darkened.

"That's more than I would ask," said she. "Mr. Rankeillor is a kennt
man." And she bade us finish our meat, get clear of the clachan as soon
as might be, and lie close in the bit wood on the sea-beach. "And ye can
trust me," says she, "I'll find some means to put you over."

At this we waited for no more, but shook hands with her upon the
bargain, made short work of the puddings, and set forth again from
Limekilns as far as to the wood. It was a small piece of perhaps a score
of elders and hawthorns and a few young ashes, not thick enough to veil
us from passersby upon the road or beach. Here we must lie, however,
making the best of the brave warm weather and the good hopes we now had
of a deliverance, and planing more particularly what remained for us to
do.

We had but one trouble all day; when a strolling piper came and sat in
the same wood with us; a red-nosed, bleareyed, drunken dog, with a great
bottle of whisky in his pocket, and a long story of wrongs that had been
done him by all sorts of persons, from the Lord President of the
Court of Session, who had denied him justice, down to the Bailies of
Inverkeithing who had given him more of it than he desired. It was
impossible but he should conceive some suspicion of two men lying all
day concealed in a thicket and having no business to allege. As long as
he stayed there he kept us in hot water with prying questions; and after
he was gone, as he was a man not very likely to hold his tongue, we were
in the greater impatience to be gone ourselves.

The day came to an end with the same brightness; the night fell quiet
and clear; lights came out in houses and hamlets and then, one after
another, began to be put out; but it was past eleven, and we were long
since strangely tortured with anxieties, before we heard the grinding
of oars upon the rowing-pins. At that, we looked out and saw the lass
herself coming rowing to us in a boat. She had trusted no one with our
affairs, not even her sweetheart, if she had one; but as soon as her
father was asleep, had left the house by a window, stolen a neighbour's
boat, and come to our assistance single-handed.

I was abashed how to find expression for my thanks; but she was no less
abashed at the thought of hearing them; begged us to lose no time and to
hold our peace, saying (very properly) that the heart of our matter was
in haste and silence; and so, what with one thing and another, she had
set us on the Lothian shore not far from Carriden, had shaken hands with
us, and was out again at sea and rowing for Limekilns, before there was
one word said either of her service or our gratitude.

Even after she was gone, we had nothing to say, as indeed nothing was
enough for such a kindness. Only Alan stood a great while upon the shore
shaking his head.

"It is a very fine lass," he said at last. "David, it is a very fine
lass." And a matter of an hour later, as we were lying in a den on
the sea-shore and I had been already dozing, he broke out again in
commendations of her character. For my part, I could say nothing, she
was so simple a creature that my heart smote me both with remorse and
fear: remorse because we had traded upon her ignorance; and fear lest we
should have anyway involved her in the dangers of our situation.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Alan and Davie are now so broke that they have to try and resolve Davie's inheritance problems or else they'll starve. So they wind up planning to cross the Forth River directly into the Lowlands, again using the logic that the most obvious path is sometimes the best for throwing their pursuers off the track. They decide to use the bridge under Stirling Castle. It's night and they can't see anyone guarding the bridge, but Alan wants to wait a bit before crossing to make sure. A little old lady goes across, and her footsteps seem to wake a sentry who had apparently been dozing. Now that she has woken the guard, it's not safe for Alan and Davie to use that path to the Lowlands. So they're still stuck on the wrong side of the Forth, and Alan's sure that there are soldiers watching at every crossing. Davie's all for attempting to cross the river soon-ish, while Alan wants to go further east, to the sea mouth of the river, to try and hire a boat to get across. Alan convinces Davie to shut up, keep walking, and let Alan do the thinking. At last, the two come upon the small village of Limekilns, which faces Queensferry across the bay. So close and yet so far! The two settle in for a bit of food at a local pub, where they're served by an attractive young woman. Once they leave, Alan hatches a scheme to get that boat they need. They will get the waitress to feel sorry for Davie, which he thinks won't be too tough since Davie's not looking his best these days. Davie laughs at this. Alan tells Davie to be serious and to follow Alan's lead. Alan instructs Davie to lean pathetically on his arm, and Alan helps Davie back to the pub. The young waitress asks what's wrong with Davie. Alan says that poor Davie's been walking hundreds of miles and sleeping in damp heather - no wonder he's expiring. The waitress says Alan should get a horse for Davie. Alan asks what the waitress would have him do: steal? The waitress then asks why Davie has no friends to help. He does, says Alan, if we could get to them. Then he implies that Davie's friends are all Jacobites, and so not in a position to help. The waitress pities Davie for being caught up in all these troubles while so young. But he's not too young to hang, points out Alan, which the waitress allows would be a shame. The waitress is so overcome with sympathy that she offers to let Alan and Davie stay at the inn for free that night. She wants to help Alan with his request for a boat, but she is still afraid that Alan and Davie might be "malefactors," or, to put it simply, criminals. Davie promises her that, while he is in pretty dire straits right now, he's still a loyal subject of King George II. Davie's loyalty and his destination both convince the waitress to help Alan and Davie cross the bay. The girl is so concerned for their safety that she arrives to meet them at the appointed time rowing a boat herself. She takes them all the way across to the opposite shore. Both Davie and Alan are filled with admiration for her. Davie worries about her now that they have involved her in their highly illegal adventures.