THE   DEATH   OF   THE   RED   FOX.                   161
I had no sooner seen these people coming than I
made up my mind (for no reason that I can tell) to go
through with my adventure; and when the first came
alongside of me, I rose up from the bracken and asked
him the way to Aucharn.
He stopped and looked at me, as I thought, a little
oddly; and then, turning to the lawyer, "Mungo," said
he, "there's many a man would think this more of a
warning than two pyats. Here am I on my road to
Duror on the job ye ken; and here is a young lad starts
up out of the bracken, and speers if I am on the way to
Aucharn."
"Glenure," said the other, "this is an ill subject for
jesting."
These two had now drawn close up and were gazing
at me, while the two followers had halted about a stone-
cast in the rear.
"And what seek ye in Aucharn?" said Colin Roy
Campbell of Glenure; him they called the Red fox;
for he it was that I had stopped.
"The man that lives there," said I.
"James of the Glens," says Glenure, musingly; and
then to the lawyer: "Is he gathering his people, think
ye?"
"Anyway," says the lawyer, "we shall do better to
bide where we are, and let the soldiers rally us."
"If you are concerned for me," said I, "I am neither
of his people nor yours, but an honest subject of King
George, owing no man and fearing no man."
L