On all accounts we lay the next day in the borders of the wood and kept a close look-out , so that if it was John Breck that came we might be ready to guide him , and if it was the red-coats we should have time to get away . About noon a man was to be spied , straggling up the open side of the mountain in the sun , and looking round him as he came , from under his hand . No sooner had Alan seen him than he whistled ; the man turned and came a little towards us : then Alan would give another `` peep ! '' and the man would come still nearer ; and so by the sound of whistling , he was guided to the spot where we lay . He was a ragged , wild , bearded man , about forty , grossly disfigured with the small pox , and looked both dull and savage . Although his English was very bad and broken , yet Alan -LRB- according to his very handsome use , whenever I was by -RRB- would suffer him to speak no Gaelic . Perhaps the strange language made him appear more backward than he really was ; but I thought he had little good-will to serve us , and what he had was the child of terror . Alan would have had him carry a message to James ; but the bouman would hear of no message . `` She was forget it , '' he said in his screaming voice ; and would either have a letter or wash his hands of us . I thought Alan would be gravelled at that , for we lacked the means of writing in that desert . But he was a man of more resources than I knew ; searched the wood until he found the quill of a cushat-dove , which he shaped into a pen ; made himself a kind of ink with gunpowder from his horn and water from the running stream ; and tearing a corner from his French military commission -LRB- which he carried in his pocket , like a talisman to keep him from the gallows -RRB- , he sat down and wrote as follows : `` DEAR KINSMAN , -- Please send the money by the bearer to the place he kens of . `` Your affectionate cousin , `` A. S. '' This he intrusted to the bouman , who promised to make what manner of speed he best could , and carried it off with him down the hill . He was three full days gone , but about five in the evening of the third , we heard a whistling in the wood , which Alan answered ; and presently the bouman came up the water-side , looking for us , right and left . He seemed less sulky than before , and indeed he was no doubt well pleased to have got to the end of such a dangerous commission . He gave us the news of the country ; that it was alive with red-coats ; that arms were being found , and poor folk brought in trouble daily ; and that James and some of his servants were already clapped in prison at Fort William , under strong suspicion of complicity . It seemed it was noised on all sides that Alan Breck had fired the shot ; and there was a bill issued for both him and me , with one hundred pounds reward . This was all as bad as could be ; and the little note the bouman had carried us from Mrs. Stewart was of a miserable sadness . In it she besought Alan not to let himself be captured , assuring him , if he fell in the hands of the troops , both he and James were no better than dead men . The money she had sent was all that she could beg or borrow , and she prayed heaven we could be doing with it . Lastly , she said , she enclosed us one of the bills in which we were described .
This we XXXXX upon with great curiosity and not a little fear , partly as a man may look in a mirror , partly as he might look into the barrel of an enemy 's gun to judge if it be truly aimed .
according assuring carry enclosed found guide knew looked shaped suffer