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The only chance was that here and there some Whig, whom he had led to battle, might remember the Captain of the Milnwood Marksmen; but the risk, if there was any, could not be guarded against. The Howff seemed full and frequented as if possessed of all its old celebrity.
"I must go down," replied Morton, "to Niel Blane the Piper's Howff; he can give me a bed, I suppose?" "A bed? I'se warrant can he," replied Ailie, "and gar ye pay weel for 't into the bargain. Laddie, I daresay ye hae lost your wits in thae foreign parts, to gang and gie siller for a supper and a bed, and might hae baith for naething, and thanks t' ye for accepting them."
He faced round at the mirror on his mantel, and looked at his own image with staring and startled eyes, his mouth open, the breath coming hard through his nostrils. "You're a gey ill ane," he said; "you're a gey ill ane! My God, where have you landed yourself?" He went out to escape from his thoughts. Instinctively he turned to the Howff for consolation.
He felt himself, as may well be supposed, a much changed man since that festivity; and yet, to look around him, the groups assembled in the Howff seemed not dissimilar to those which the same scene had formerly presented. Two or three burghers husbanded their "dribbles o' brandy;" two or three dragoons lounged over their muddy ale, and cursed the inactive times that allowed them no better cheer.
Glossin laid his finger upon his lips with a cautious glance at the door, and then proceeded in his instructions. 'When you escape, you had better go to the Kaim of Derncleugh. 'Donner! that howff is blown. 'The devil! well, then, you may steal my skiff that lies on the beach there, and away. But you must remain snug at the Point of Warroch till I come to see you.
Last winter, however, it was simply a weak need for companionship that drew him to the Howff. This winter it was more: it was the need of a formed habit that must have its wonted satisfaction. He had a further impulse to conviviality now. It had become a habit that compelled him.
Abune Hangin' Shaw, in the bield o' the Black Hill, there's a bit enclosed grund wi' an iron yert; and it seems, in the auld days, that was the kirkyaird o' Ba'weary, and consecrated by the papists before the blessed licht shone upon the kingdom. It was a great howff, o' Mr. Soulis's onyway; there he would sit an' consider his sermons' and inded it's a bieldy bit.
The fellow who had swaggered at the Howff last night about "what he would do if a professor jumped on him," mustn't prove wanting in the present trial, beneath the eyes of those on whom he had imposed his blatancy. When we think of what Gourlay did that day, we must remember that he was soaked in alcohol not merely with his morning's potation, but with the dregs of previous carousals.
"'Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est," said Tarmillan, who was on one of his rare visits to the Howff. He was too busy and too wise a man to frequent it greatly. Armstrong blushed; and Gourlay grew big and brave, in the backing of the great Tarmillan. He took another swig on the strength of it. But his resentment was still surging.
He was attracted to Gourlay by the manly way he tossed his drink, and by the false fire it put into him. But he made no immediate advance. He sat smiling in creeshy benevolence, beaming on Gourlay but saying nothing. When the party was ended, however, he made up to him going through the door. "I'm glad to have met you, Mr. Gourlay," said he. "Won't you come round to the Howff for a while?"
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