prompt:
Chapter: Early as day comes in the beginning of July, it was still dark when we
reached our destination, a cleft in the head of a great mountain, with a
water running through the midst, and upon the one hand a shallow cave
in a rock. Birches grew there in a thin, pretty wood, which a little
farther on was changed into a wood of pines. The burn was full of trout;
the wood of cushat-doves; on the open side of the mountain beyond,
whaups would be always whistling, and cuckoos were plentiful. From the
mouth of the cleft we looked down upon a part of Mamore, and on the
sea-loch that divides that country from Appin; and this from so great
a height as made it my continual wonder and pleasure to sit and behold
them.

The name of the cleft was the Heugh of Corrynakiegh; and although from
its height and being so near upon the sea, it was often beset with
clouds, yet it was on the whole a pleasant place, and the five days we
lived in it went happily.

We slept in the cave, making our bed of heather bushes which we cut for
that purpose, and covering ourselves with Alan's great-coat. There was a
low concealed place, in a turning of the glen, where we were so bold as
to make fire: so that we could warm ourselves when the clouds set in,
and cook hot porridge, and grill the little trouts that we caught with
our hands under the stones and overhanging banks of the burn. This was
indeed our chief pleasure and business; and not only to save our meal
against worse times, but with a rivalry that much amused us, we spent
a great part of our days at the water-side, stripped to the waist and
groping about or (as they say) guddling for these fish. The largest we
got might have been a quarter of a pound; but they were of good flesh
and flavour, and when broiled upon the coals, lacked only a little salt
to be delicious.

In any by-time Alan must teach me to use my sword, for my ignorance
had much distressed him; and I think besides, as I had sometimes
the upper-hand of him in the fishing, he was not sorry to turn to an
exercise where he had so much the upper-hand of me. He made it somewhat
more of a pain than need have been, for he stormed at me all through the
lessons in a very violent manner of scolding, and would push me so close
that I made sure he must run me through the body. I was often tempted
to turn tail, but held my ground for all that, and got some profit of
my lessons; if it was but to stand on guard with an assured countenance,
which is often all that is required. So, though I could never in the
least please my master, I was not altogether displeased with myself.

In the meanwhile, you are not to suppose that we neglected our chief
business, which was to get away.

"It will be many a long day," Alan said to me on our first morning,
"before the red-coats think upon seeking Corrynakiegh; so now we must
get word sent to James, and he must find the siller for us."

"And how shall we send that word?" says I. "We are here in a desert
place, which yet we dare not leave; and unless ye get the fowls of the
air to be your messengers, I see not what we shall be able to do."

"Ay?" said Alan. "Ye're a man of small contrivance, David."

Thereupon he fell in a muse, looking in the embers of the fire; and
presently, getting a piece of wood, he fashioned it in a cross, the four
ends of which he blackened on the coals. Then he looked at me a little
shyly.

"Could ye lend me my button?" says he. "It seems a strange thing to ask
a gift again, but I own I am laith to cut another."

I gave him the button; whereupon he strung it on a strip of his
great-coat which he had used to bind the cross; and tying in a little
sprig of birch and another of fir, he looked upon his work with
satisfaction.

"Now," said he, "there is a little clachan" (what is called a hamlet
in the English) "not very far from Corrynakiegh, and it has the name of
Koalisnacoan. There there are living many friends of mine whom I could
trust with my life, and some that I am no just so sure of. Ye see,
David, there will be money set upon our heads; James himsel' is to set
money on them; and as for the Campbells, they would never spare siller
where there was a Stewart to be hurt. If it was otherwise, I would go
down to Koalisnacoan whatever, and trust my life into these people's
hands as lightly as I would trust another with my glove."

"But being so?" said I.

"Being so," said he, "I would as lief they didnae see me. There's bad
folk everywhere, and what's far worse, weak ones. So when it comes dark
again, I will steal down into that clachan, and set this that I have
been making in the window of a good friend of mine, John Breck Maccoll,
a bouman* of Appin's."

     *A bouman is a tenant who takes stock from the landlord and
     shares with him the increase.

"With all my heart," says I; "and if he finds it, what is he to think?"

"Well," says Alan, "I wish he was a man of more penetration, for by my
troth I am afraid he will make little enough of it! But this is what
I have in my mind. This cross is something in the nature of the
crosstarrie, or fiery cross, which is the signal of gathering in our
clans; yet he will know well enough the clan is not to rise, for there
it is standing in his window, and no word with it. So he will say to
himsel', THE CLAN IS NOT TO RISE, BUT THERE IS SOMETHING. Then he will
see my button, and that was Duncan Stewart's. And then he will say to
himsel', THE SON OF DUNCAN IS IN THE HEATHER, AND HAS NEED OF ME."

"Well," said I, "it may be. But even supposing so, there is a good deal
of heather between here and the Forth."

"And that is a very true word," says Alan. "But then John Breck will see
the sprig of birch and the sprig of pine; and he will say to himsel' (if
he is a man of any penetration at all, which I misdoubt), ALAN WILL BE
LYING IN A WOOD WHICH IS BOTH OF PINES AND BIRCHES. Then he will think
to himsel', THAT IS NOT SO VERY RIFE HEREABOUT; and then he will come
and give us a look up in Corrynakiegh. And if he does not, David, the
devil may fly away with him, for what I care; for he will no be worth
the salt to his porridge."

"Eh, man," said I, drolling with him a little, "you're very ingenious!
But would it not be simpler for you to write him a few words in black
and white?"

"And that is an excellent observe, Mr. Balfour of Shaws," says Alan,
drolling with me; "and it would certainly be much simpler for me to
write to him, but it would be a sore job for John Breck to read it. He
would have to go to the school for two-three years; and it's possible we
might be wearied waiting on him."

So that night Alan carried down his fiery cross and set it in the
bouman's window. He was troubled when he came back; for the dogs had
barked and the folk run out from their houses; and he thought he had
heard a clatter of arms and seen a red-coat come to one of the doors. On
all accounts we lay the next day in the borders of the wood and kept a
close look-out, so that if it was John Breck that came we might be ready
to guide him, and if it was the red-coats we should have time to get
away.

About noon a man was to be spied, straggling up the open side of the
mountain in the sun, and looking round him as he came, from under his
hand. No sooner had Alan seen him than he whistled; the man turned and
came a little towards us: then Alan would give another "peep!" and the
man would come still nearer; and so by the sound of whistling, he was
guided to the spot where we lay.

He was a ragged, wild, bearded man, about forty, grossly disfigured with
the small pox, and looked both dull and savage. Although his English
was very bad and broken, yet Alan (according to his very handsome use,
whenever I was by) would suffer him to speak no Gaelic. Perhaps the
strange language made him appear more backward than he really was; but
I thought he had little good-will to serve us, and what he had was the
child of terror.

Alan would have had him carry a message to James; but the bouman would
hear of no message. "She was forget it," he said in his screaming voice;
and would either have a letter or wash his hands of us.

I thought Alan would be gravelled at that, for we lacked the means of
writing in that desert.

But he was a man of more resources than I knew; searched the wood until
he found the quill of a cushat-dove, which he shaped into a pen; made
himself a kind of ink with gunpowder from his horn and water from the
running stream; and tearing a corner from his French military commission
(which he carried in his pocket, like a talisman to keep him from the
gallows), he sat down and wrote as follows:

"DEAR KINSMAN,--Please send the money by the bearer to the place he kens
of.

"Your affectionate cousin,

"A. S."

This he intrusted to the bouman, who promised to make what manner of
speed he best could, and carried it off with him down the hill.

He was three full days gone, but about five in the evening of the third,
we heard a whistling in the wood, which Alan answered; and presently the
bouman came up the water-side, looking for us, right and left. He seemed
less sulky than before, and indeed he was no doubt well pleased to have
got to the end of such a dangerous commission.

He gave us the news of the country; that it was alive with red-coats;
that arms were being found, and poor folk brought in trouble daily; and
that James and some of his servants were already clapped in prison at
Fort William, under strong suspicion of complicity. It seemed it was
noised on all sides that Alan Breck had fired the shot; and there was a
bill issued for both him and me, with one hundred pounds reward.

This was all as bad as could be; and the little note the bouman had
carried us from Mrs. Stewart was of a miserable sadness. In it she
besought Alan not to let himself be captured, assuring him, if he fell
in the hands of the troops, both he and James were no better than dead
men. The money she had sent was all that she could beg or borrow, and
she prayed heaven we could be doing with it. Lastly, she said, she
enclosed us one of the bills in which we were described.

This we looked upon with great curiosity and not a little fear, partly
as a man may look in a mirror, partly as he might look into the barrel
of an enemy's gun to judge if it be truly aimed. Alan was advertised as
"a small, pock-marked, active man of thirty-five or thereby, dressed
in a feathered hat, a French side-coat of blue with silver buttons,
and lace a great deal tarnished, a red waistcoat and breeches of black,
shag;" and I as "a tall strong lad of about eighteen, wearing an
old blue coat, very ragged, an old Highland bonnet, a long homespun
waistcoat, blue breeches; his legs bare, low-country shoes, wanting the
toes; speaks like a Lowlander, and has no beard."

Alan was well enough pleased to see his finery so fully remembered and
set down; only when he came to the word tarnish, he looked upon his lace
like one a little mortified. As for myself, I thought I cut a miserable
figure in the bill; and yet was well enough pleased too, for since I had
changed these rags, the description had ceased to be a danger and become
a source of safety.

"Alan," said I, "you should change your clothes."

"Na, troth!" said Alan, "I have nae others. A fine sight I would be, if
I went back to France in a bonnet!"

This put a second reflection in my mind: that if I were to separate
from Alan and his tell-tale clothes I should be safe against arrest, and
might go openly about my business. Nor was this all; for suppose I was
arrested when I was alone, there was little against me; but suppose I
was taken in company with the reputed murderer, my case would begin to
be grave. For generosity's sake I dare not speak my mind upon this head;
but I thought of it none the less.

I thought of it all the more, too, when the bouman brought out a green
purse with four guineas in gold, and the best part of another in small
change. True, it was more than I had. But then Alan, with less than
five guineas, had to get as far as France; I, with my less than two, not
beyond Queensferry; so that taking things in their proportion, Alan's
society was not only a peril to my life, but a burden on my purse.

But there was no thought of the sort in the honest head of my companion.
He believed he was serving, helping, and protecting me. And what could I
do but hold my peace, and chafe, and take my chance of it?

"It's little enough," said Alan, putting the purse in his pocket, "but
it'll do my business. And now, John Breck, if ye will hand me over my
button, this gentleman and me will be for taking the road."

But the bouman, after feeling about in a hairy purse that hung in front
of him in the Highland manner (though he wore otherwise the Lowland
habit, with sea-trousers), began to roll his eyes strangely, and at last
said, "Her nainsel will loss it," meaning he thought he had lost it.

"What!" cried Alan, "you will lose my button, that was my father's
before me? Now I will tell you what is in my mind, John Breck: it is
in my mind this is the worst day's work that ever ye did since ye was
born."

And as Alan spoke, he set his hands on his knees and looked at the
bouman with a smiling mouth, and that dancing light in his eyes that
meant mischief to his enemies.

Perhaps the bouman was honest enough; perhaps he had meant to cheat and
then, finding himself alone with two of us in a desert place, cast back
to honesty as being safer; at least, and all at once, he seemed to find
that button and handed it to Alan.

"Well, and it is a good thing for the honour of the Maccolls," said
Alan, and then to me, "Here is my button back again, and I thank you for
parting with it, which is of a piece with all your friendships to me."
Then he took the warmest parting of the bouman. "For," says he, "ye have
done very well by me, and set your neck at a venture, and I will always
give you the name of a good man."

Lastly, the bouman took himself off by one way; and Alan and I (getting our
chattels together) struck into another to resume our flight.

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

completion: Alan and David move stealthily through the mountains in the dark until they reach a cave with a stream close by. In this pleasant hideout they spend five days cooking porridge, grilling trout and sleeping on heather beds. Alan decides to send word to James of the Glens about his safety. In the night he visits the house of John Breck to leave a sign, a blackened cross with his silver button on it, in the window. The next day Breck comes to visit Alan. Alan sends a written message to James through Breck. Three days later, Breck returns with the news of James' arrest. He also gives Alan a packet containing some money sent by Mrs. Stewart. David and Alan soon depart for their destination.


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 David move stealthily through the mountains in the dark until they reach a cave with a stream close by. In this pleasant hideout they spend five days cooking porridge, grilling trout and sleeping on heather beds. Alan decides to send word to James of the Glens about his safety. In the night he visits the house of John Breck to leave a sign, a blackened cross with his silver button on it, in the window. The next day Breck comes to visit Alan. Alan sends a written message to James through Breck. Three days later, Breck returns with the news of James' arrest. He also gives Alan a packet containing some money sent by Mrs. Stewart. David and Alan soon depart for their destination.


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: When they reach Cluny's dwelling, the Jacobite leader welcomes Alan and David with open arms. The strange house, called 'Cluny's Cage,' is mounted on a hillside with a tree serving as the central beam for the roof. The cage, which is comfortable, serves as one of Cluny's hideouts. Cluny plays the part of a good host by serving them a delightful lunch and later setting the table for a game of cards. David declines to join in the game, for he wants to rest. While he is in a deep sleep, Alan secretly borrows money from David to continue his game with Cluny. David is sick and unaware that he sleeps for three days. When he finally wakes out of his illness, he notices that Alan and Cluny are no longer playing cards. Alan, however, looks dispirited because he has lost all his money and David's as well. David is enraged that his friend has taken and lost his money, but before they leave the cage, Cluny returns David's money to him.


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: When they reach Cluny's dwelling, the Jacobite leader welcomes Alan and David with open arms. The strange house, called 'Cluny's Cage,' is mounted on a hillside with a tree serving as the central beam for the roof. The cage, which is comfortable, serves as one of Cluny's hideouts. Cluny plays the part of a good host by serving them a delightful lunch and later setting the table for a game of cards. David declines to join in the game, for he wants to rest. While he is in a deep sleep, Alan secretly borrows money from David to continue his game with Cluny. David is sick and unaware that he sleeps for three days. When he finally wakes out of his illness, he notices that Alan and Cluny are no longer playing cards. Alan, however, looks dispirited because he has lost all his money and David's as well. David is enraged that his friend has taken and lost his money, but before they leave the cage, Cluny returns David's money to him.


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: Alan and David arrive at the house of Duncan Dhu Maclaren, who welcomes them with open arms and does his best to keep them in comfort. David is put to bed and the doctor is called. Under the doctor's supervision and the care provided by Duncan's family, David regains his health in a month's time. While David lives in the lap of security, Alan stays out in hiding during the day. David spends his time in the company of his hosts and looks out the window at the scene outside. One day Robin Oig, one of the sons of the notorious Rob Roy, comes to meet David. He makes inquiries about David's family and about his father in particular. David is not able to give him the necessary information. As Robin Oig goes out of the house, he meets Alan, an enemy of his clan, and they confront each other. Duncan tries to pacify them by making them play on his bagpipe. Thus, instead of fighting with the swords, they compete through their talent. Both of them play well, but Robin is the superior piper. Alan commends his abilities, and they part peacefully.