Poor lass! her father stood to be hanged for pretty indefensible
misconduct. What was yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he was
prepared to save his four quarters by the worst of shame and the
most foul of cowardly murders--murder by the false oath; and to
complete our misfortunes, it seemed myself was picked out to be the
victim.
I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire
for movement, air, and the open country.
CHAPTER VII--I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR
I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the Lang Dykes {12}. This
is a rural road which runs on the north side over against the city.
Thence I could see the whole black length of it tail down, from
where the castle stands upon its crags above the loch in a long
line of spires and gable ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the
sight my heart swelled in my bosom. My youth, as I have told, was
already inured to dangers; but such danger as I had seen the face
of but that morning, in the midst of what they call the safety of a
town, shook me beyond experience. Peril of slavery, peril of
shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood all of these
without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp voice and
the fat face of Simon, property Lord Lovat, daunted me wholly.
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