"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?"