And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with impatience to renew their former conversation. The lady had branched some while before from Alan’s stomach to the case of a goodbrother of her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing at extraordinary length. Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both dull and awful, for she talked with unction. The upshot was that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road, and scarce marking what I saw. Presently had any been looking they might have seen me to start.
“We pit a fomentation to his feet,” the good-wife was saying, “and a het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of pennyroyal, and fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast. . . ”
“Sir,” says I, cutting very quietly in, “there’s a friend of mine gone by the house.”
“Is that e’en sae?” replies Alan, as though it were a thing of small account. And then, “Ye were saying, mem?” says he; and the wearyful wife went on.
Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must go forth after the change.
“Was it him with the red head?” asked Alan.
“Ye have it,” said I.
“What did I tell you in the wood?” he cried. “And yet it’s strange he should be here too! Was he his lane?”
“His lee-lane for what I could see,” said I.
“Did he gang by?” he asked.
“Straight by,” said I, “and looked neither to the right nor left.”
“And that’s queerer yet,” said Alan. “It sticks in my mind, Davie, that we should be stirring. But where to? – deil hae’t! This is like old days fairly,” cries he.
“There is one big differ, though,” said I, “that now we have money in our pockets.”
“And another big differ, Mr. Balfour,” says he, “that now we have dogs at our tail. They’re on the scent; they’re in full cry, David. It’s a bad business and be damned to it.” And he sat thinking hard with a look of his that I knew well.
“I’m saying, Luckie,” says he, when the goodwife returned, “have ye a back road out of this change house?”
She told him there was and where it led to.
“Then, sir,” says he to me, “I think that will be the shortest road for us. And here’s good-bye to ye, my braw woman; and I’ll no forget thon of the cinnamon water.”
We went out by way of the woman’s kale yard, and up a lane among fields. Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in a little hollow place of the country, out of view of men, sat down.
“Now for a council of war, Davie,” said he. “But first of all, a bit lesson to ye. Suppose that I had been like you, what would yon old wife have minded of the pair of us! Just that we had gone out by the back gate. And what does she mind now? A fine, canty, friendly, cracky man, that suffered with the stomach, poor body! and was real ta’en up about the goodbrother. O man, David, try and learn to have some kind of intelligence!”
“I’ll try, Alan,” said I.
“And now for him of the red head,” says he; “was he gaun fast or slow?”
“Betwixt and between,” said I.
“No kind of a hurry about the man?” he asked.
“Never a sign of it,” said I.
“Nhm!” said Alan, “it looks queer. We saw nothing of them this morning on the Whins; he’s passed us by, he doesnae seem to be looking, and yet here he is on our road! Dod, Davie, I begin to take a notion. I think it’s no you they’re seeking, I think it’s me; and I think they ken fine where they’re gaun.”
“They ken?” I asked.
“I think Andie Scougal’s sold me – him or his mate wha kent some part of the affair – or else Charlie’s clerk callant, which would be a pity too,” says Alan; “and if you askit me for just my inward private conviction, I think there’ll be heads cracked on Gillane sands.”
“Alan,” I cried, “if you’re at all right there’ll be folk there and to spare. It’ll be small service to crack heads.”
“It would aye be a satisfaction though,” says Alan. But bide a bit; bide a bit; I’m thinking – and thanks to this bonny westland wind, I believe I’ve still a chance of it. It’s this way, Davie. I’m no trysted with this man Scougal till the gloaming comes. BUT,” says he, “IF I CAN GET A BIT OF A WIND OUT OF THE WEST I’LL BE THERE LONG OR THAT,” he says, “AND LIE-TO FOR YE BEHIND THE ISLE OF FIDRA. Now if your gentry kens the place, they ken the time forbye. Do ye see me coming, Davie? Thanks to Johnnie Cope and other red-coat gomerals, I should ken this country like the back of my hand; and if ye’re ready for another bit run with Alan Breck, we’ll can cast back inshore, and come to the seaside again by Dirleton. If the ship’s there, we’ll try and get on board of her. If she’s no there, I’ll just have to get back to my weary haystack. But either way of it, I think we will leave your gentry whistling on their thumbs.”
“I believe there’s some chance in it,” said I. “Have on with ye, Alan!”
Chapter XIII – GILLANE SANDS
I DID not profit by Alan’s pilotage as he had done by his marchings under General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went. It is my excuse that we travelled exceeding fast. Some part we ran, some trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace. Twice, while we were at top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though we plumped into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as a loaded musket.
“Has ye seen my horse?” he gasped.
“Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day,” replied the countryman.
And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling “ride and tie”; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had gone home to Linton. Not only that, but he expended some breath (of which he had not very much left) to curse his own misfortune and my stupidity which was said to be its cause.
“Them that cannae tell the truth,” he observed to myself as we went on again, “should be aye mindful to leave an honest, handy lee behind them. If folk dinnae ken what ye’re doing, Davie, they’re terrible taken up with it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it than what I do for pease porridge.”
As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very near due north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left; on the right, the top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we struck the shore again, not far from Dirleton. From north Berwick west to Gillane Ness there runs a string of four small islets, Craiglieth, the Lamb, Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their diversity of size and shape. Fidra is the most particular, being a strange grey islet of two humps, made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin; and I mind that (as we drew closer to it) by some door or window of these ruins the sea peeped through like a man’s eye. Under the lee of Fidra there is a good anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a far way off, we could see the THISTLE riding.
The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste. Here is no dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond children running at their play. Gillane is a small place on the far side of the Ness, the folk of Dirleton go to their business in the inland fields, and those of North Berwick straight to the sea-fishing from their haven; so that few parts of the coast are lonelier. But I mind, as we crawled upon our bellies into that multiplicity of heights and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon all sides, and our hearts hammering at our ribs, there was such a shining of the sun and the sea, such a stir of the wind in the bent grass, and such a bustle of down- popping rabbits and up-flying gulls, that the desert seemed to me, like a place alive. No doubt it was in all ways well chosen for a secret embarcation, if the secret had been kept; and even now that it was out, and the place watched, we were able to creep unperceived to the front of the sandhills, where they look down immediately on the beach and sea.