It was a hole of about six feet by eight and three feet high, and with the sickly smell of a fox's lair.
"A couthy bit corner," said Cameron to his companion, dropping into broad Scots. "What wad we do, Broughton, had we no siclike places as this?" Saying which he yawned and eyed the other mischievously. "Man," he said, with twinkling eyes, "ye'd mak' a bonny scarecrow."
"Oh, have done!" broke out Murray of Broughton (for he it was) in a shrill, peevish voice. "What good can such filthy nooks and crannies avail us? I am like to die," he wailed on, and started coughing, with his hands clutching his sides. Already the Prince's secretary, broken in health, haunted by the constant fear that the Chevalier whom he loved sincerely was taken, oppressed also by his own danger, was coming nearer day by day to his disgrace, driven onward by the weakness of body and mind which may make of any man a coward in the face of death.
His face was drawn with sickness and anxiety. In his pale haunted eyes there flickered a sleepless dread. Murray had all the loyalty, but none of the reckless temerity of the true adventurer.
Meanwhile Cameron had taken tobacco from his pocket.
"A pipe," he said, "I must have, though all the Elector's red-coats were to sit around this spot and sniff the dear smell into their red faces."
Then blowing a cloud of smoke which sent poor Murray into a fit of coughing, he turned abruptly upon the messenger of Muckle John, saying in Gaelic:
"Do you understand Scots? For our friend here, whose name you are probably well acquainted with, has no Gaelic, poor creature!"
The man nodded.
"What is your name?" asked Cameron.