"It is a difficult cast she has given me to play," said the Highlander, looking at Die Vernon's letter, "but I daresay I shall be able to serve you. Only you must come and visit me in my own country. I cannot hope to aid you on the paving stones of Glasgow. And you, Bailie, if you will come up with this young gentleman as far as the Clachan of Aberfoil, I will pay you the thousand pounds Scots that I owe you." "Such a journey ill becomes my place," said the Bailie, doubtfully, "but if I did come, would you really and soothfully pay me the siller?" "I swear to you," said the Highlander, "by him that sleeps beneath the grey stane at Inch Cailleach! "But," he continued, "I must be budging. For the air of the Glasgow tolbooth is no that over salutary to a Highland constitution." "Ohon," said the Bailie, "that I should be art and part in an escape from justice--it will be a disgrace to me all the days of my life! Aweel, we have all our backslidings to answer for. Stanchells, open the door!" The head jailor stared at the two visitors who had gotten into Mr. Owen's cell without his leave, but he was reassured by the Bailie's careless "Friends of mine, Stanchells, friends of mine!" The party descended to the lower vestibule, and there called more than once for Dougal, but without effect. Whereupon Campbell observed, with a quiet smile, that "if Dougal was the lad he kenned him, he would scarce wait to be thanked for his share of that night's work, but would now be full trot for the pass of Ballamaha--" "And am I myself," cried the angry Bailie, "to be locked up in the tolbooth all night? Send for fore-hammers, sledge-hammers, pincers! Send for Deacon Yettlin, the smith. And as for that Hieland blackguard, he shall hang as high as Haman--" "When ye catch him," said Campbell, gravely, "but wait, surely the jail door is not locked!" And so it turned out. "He has some glimmerings of sense, that Dougal creature," added the Highlander; "he kenned that an open door might have served me at a pinch!" So saying he sprang into the darkness, and soon the street resounded to low signal whistles, uttered and instantly replied to. "Hear to the Hieland deevils," said Mr. Jarvie; "they think themselves already on the skirts of Ben Lomond! But what's this?" There was a clash of iron at his feet, and stooping to the causeway cobbles, the Bailie lifted the keys of the jail which Dougal had carried away in his flight. "Indeed," he said, "and that's just as well. For they cost the burgh siller, and there might have been some talk in the council about the loss of them, that I would little like to have heard. It would not be the first time they had cast up my kin to me, if Bailie Grahame and some others should get wind of this night's work."