To his humour of daffing I succumbed, and fell into an extraordinary ease with the world. Here I sat in a snug little tavern with the two most taking comrades in the world drinking a hot punch brewed to a nicety, while outside the devil of a storm roared and screamed. As for my companions, they were old campaigners, not to be ruffled by the slings of envious fortune. Captain Donald Roy was wont to bear with composure good luck and ill, content to sit him down whistling on the sodden heath to eat his mouthful of sour brose with the same good humour he would have displayed at a gathering of his clan gentlemen where the table groaned with usquebaugh, mountain trout, and Highland venison. Creagh's philosophy too was all for taking what the gods sent and leaving uncrossed bridges till the morrow. Was the weather foul? Sure, the sun would soon shine, and what was a cloak for but to keep out the rain? I never knew him lose his light gay spirits, and I have seen him at many an evil pass. The clatter of a horse's hoofs in the courtyard put a period to our festivities. Presently rug-headed Hamish Gorm entered, a splash of mud from brogues to bonnet. "What news, Hamish? Has Volney started?" I cried. "She would be leaving directly. Ta Sassenach iss in ta carriage with ta daughter of Macleod, and he will be a fery goot man to stick a dirk in whatefer," fumed the gillie. I caught him roughly by the shoulder. "There will be no dirk play this night, Hamish Gorm. Do you hear that? It will be left for your betters to settle with this man, and if you cannot remember that you will just stay here." He muttered sullenly that he would remember, but it was a great pity if Hamish Gorm could not avenge the wrongs of the daughter of his chief. We rode for some miles along a cross country path where the mud was so deep that the horses sank to their fetlocks. The wind had driven away the rain and the night had cleared overhead. There were still scudding clouds scouring across the face of the moon, but the promise was for a clear night. We reached the Surrey road and followed it along the heath till we came to the shadow of three great oaks. Many a Dick Turpin of the road had lurked under the drooping boughs of these same trees and sallied out to the hilltop with his ominous cry of "Stand and deliver!" Many a jolly grazier and fat squire had yielded up his purse at this turn of the road. For a change we meant to rum-pad a baronet, and I flatter myself we made as dashing a trio of cullies as any gentlemen of the heath among them all.