"Bide the night," echoed Murdoch sharply, "bide the night in company with yon? Can ye—by the dogs of Lorn I think ye're crazed. What have I ever done to ye that ye should mak' me sic a daft-like proposal?"
"It is no use, Rob," said Gloom sadly.
With a kind of horror at his own notoriety Rob turned away and passed down the slope. He heard the voice of Murdoch raised in shrill anger and falling into nothingness on the wind. Behind him trooped the gipsies, uncomplaining but dispirited, streaming towards Strathyre.
And so passing through the sleeping village they reached the narrow defile at the head of Loch Lubnaig, and ascending the hillside passed a dreary night.
It was just before the dawn of the next day that Rob came to a decision, which appeared to him the only wise and honest thing to do. He wrote a brief note to Gloom thanking him for his great kindness, and stating that he would be far towards the south by the morning.
Then stepping between the gipsies' sleeping forms he came down upon the loch and set off at a trot for Kilmahog.
Many days afterwards—days full to the brim of danger and heavy travelling, Rob reached Edinburgh and wandered about the High Street. He had managed to purchase another set of clothes, and for the present he deemed himself safe, and on the morrow he would keep his tryst with Muckle John at Leith.
It was about midday that he saw a great coach lumbering over the rude cobbles jolting and groaning, and about it a party of dragoons. A sudden fear gripped him that perchance this was a prisoner, who knew—perhaps Muckle John himself.
He pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Nearer clattered the dragoons, a braver sight than when they had entered that same street in the year '45. The horses straining at the coach were level with him now, and he bent forward, his eyes glued to the window. It was but a flash, but he never forgot it.
For lolling forward, leering grotesquely either in derision or some kindred emotion, sat Simon, Lord Lovat, bound for London and Tower Hill.