John looked at the young fellow with a struggle for tolerance. “Well, well,” he said; “we have all a touch of the fop in our youth.”
“True enough, you’re not so young as you were once,” put in MacLachlan, with a sly laugh.
“I’m twenty at the heart,” cried John,—“at the heart, man,—and do my looks make me more than twice that age? I can sing you, or run you, or dance you. What I thought was that at your age I was dandified too about my clothing. I’ll give you the benefit of believing that it’s not the small discomfort of a journey in wet tartan you vex yourself over. Have we not—we old campaigners of Lumsden’s—soaked our plaids in the running rivers of Low Germanie, and rolled them round us at night to make our hides the warmer, our sleep the snugger? Oh, the old days! Oh, the stout days! God’s name, but I ken one man who wearies of these tame and comfortable times!”
“Whether or not,” said Sir Donald, anxious to be on, “I wish the top of Dunchuach was under our brogues.”
“Allons, mes amis, then,” said John, and out we set.
Out we went, and we sped swiftly down to the bridge, feeling a sense of safety in the dark and the sound of the water that mourned in a hollow way under the wooden cabars. There was no sentinel, and we crossed dry and safely. On the other side, the fields, broken here and there by dry-stone dykes, a ditch or two, and one long thicket of shrubs, rose in a gentle ascent to the lime-kiln. We knew every foot of the way as ‘twere in our own pockets, and had small difficulty in pushing on in the dark. The night, beyond the kiln and its foreign trees, was loud with the call of white-horned owls, sounding so human sometimes that it sent the heart vaulting and brought us to pause in a flurried cluster on the path that we followed closely as it twisted up the hill.
However, we were in luck’s way for once. Never a creature challenged our progress until we landed at the north wall of the fort, and crouching in the rotten brake, cried, “Gate, oh!” to the occupants.
A stir got up within; a torch flared on the wall, and a voice asked our tartan and business.
“Is that you, Para Mor?” cried John Splendid. “It’s a time for short ceremony. Here are three or four of your closest friends terribly keen to see the inside of a wall.”
“Barbreck, is’t?” cried Para Mor, holding the flambeau over his head that he might look down on us.