`` Let me have a word , '' said I. `` Be sure , if they take less rents , be sure Government has a finger in the pie . It 's not this Campbell 's fault , man -- it 's his orders . And if ye killed this Colin to-morrow , what better would ye be ? There would be another factor in his shoes , as fast as spur can drive . '' `` Ye 're a good lad in a fight , '' said Alan ; `` but , man ! ye have Whig blood in ye ! '' He spoke kindly enough , but there was so much anger under his contempt that I thought it was wise to change the conversation . I expressed my wonder how , with the Highlands covered with troops , and guarded like a city in a siege , a man in his situation could come and go without arrest . `` It 's easier than ye would think , '' said Alan . `` A bare hillside -LRB- ye see -RRB- is like all one road ; if there 's a sentry at one place , ye just go by another . And then the heather 's a great help . And everywhere there are friends ' houses and friends ' byres and haystacks . And besides , when folk talk of a country covered with troops , it 's but a kind of a byword at the best . A soldier covers nae mair of it than his boot-soles . I have fished a water with a sentry on the other side of the brae , and killed a fine trout ; and I have sat in a heather bush within six feet of another , and learned a real bonny tune from his whistling . This was it , '' said he , and whistled me the air . `` And then , besides , '' he continued , `` it 's no sae bad now as it was in forty-six . The Hielands are what they call pacified . Small wonder , with never a gun or a sword left from Cantyre to Cape Wrath , but what tenty * folk have hidden in their thatch ! But what I would like to ken , David , is just how long ?
Not long , ye would XXXXX , with men like Ardshiel in exile and men like the Red Fox sitting birling the wine and oppressing the poor at home .
Let continued fished guarded hidden sat see take think whistling