Then they awoke on board the Thistle, and it seemed they had all in
readiness, for there was scarce a second's bustle on the deck
before we saw a skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively
for the coast. Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half
a mile away towards Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for
a blink upon a sandhill, waving with his arms; and though he was
gone again in the same flash, the gulls in that part continued a
little longer to fly wild.
Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and
skiff.
"It maun be as it will!" said he, when I had told him, "Weel may
yon boatie row, or my craig'll have to thole a raxing."
That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking
when the tide was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one
place to the sea; and the sandhills ran along the head of it like
the rampart of a town. No eye of ours could spy what was passing
behind there in the bents, no hurry of ours could mend the speed of
the boat's coming: time stood still with us through that uncanny
period of waiting.
"There is one thing I would like to ken," say Alan. "I would like
to ken these gentry's orders. We're worth four hunner pound the
pair of us: how if they took the guns to us, Davie! They would
get a bonny shot from the top of that lang sandy bank."
"Morally impossible," said I. "The point is that they can have no
guns. This thing has been gone about too secret; pistols they may
have, but never guns."
"I believe ye'll be in the right," says Alan. "For all which I am
wearing a good deal for yon boat."
And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog.
It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already
hard on the margin of the sea, so that the soft sand rose over my
shoes. There was no more to do whatever but to wait, to look as
much as we were able at the creeping nearer of the boat, and as
little as we could manage at the long impenetrable front of the
sandhills, over which the gulls twinkled and behind which our
enemies were doubtless marshalling.
"This is a fine, bright, caller place to get shot in," says Alan
suddenly; "and, man, I wish that I had your courage!"
"Alan!" I cried, "what kind of talk is this of it! You're just
made of courage; it's the character of the man, as I could prove
myself if there was nobody else."
"And you would be the more mistaken," said he. "What makes the
differ with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of
affairs. But for auld, cauld, dour, deadly courage, I am not fit
to hold a candle to yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands.
Here am I, fair hotching to be off; here's you (for all that I ken)
in two minds of it whether you'll no stop. Do you think that I
could do that, or would? No me! Firstly, because I havenae got
the courage and wouldnae daur; and secondly, because I am a man of
so much penetration and would see ye damned first."
"It's there ye're coming, is it?" I cried. "Ah, man Alan, you can
wile your old wives, but you never can wile me."
Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.
"I have a tryst to keep," I continued. "I am trysted with your
cousin Charlie; I have passed my word."
"Braw trysts that you'll can keep," said Alan. "Ye'll just
mistryst aince and for a' with the gentry in the bents. And what
for?" he went on with an extreme threatening gravity. "Just tell
me that, my mannie! Are ye to be speerited away like Lady Grange?
Are they to drive a dirk in your inside and bury ye in the bents?
Or is it to be the other way, and are they to bring ye in with
James? Are they folk to be trustit? Would ye stick your head in
the mouth of Sim Fraser and the ither Whigs?" he added with
extraordinary bitterness.
"Alan," cried I, "they're all rogues and liars, and I'm with ye
there.