When I opened my eyes, and recollected my situation, I found that MacGregor had already left the hut. I awakened the Bailie, who, after many a snort and groan, and some heavy complaints of the soreness of his bones, in consequence of the unwonted exertions of the preceding day, was at length able to comprehend the joyful intelligence, that the assets carried off by Rashleigh Osbaldistone had been safely recovered. The instant he understood my meaning, he forgot all his grievances, and, bustling up in a great hurry, proceeded to compare the contents of the packet which I put into his hands, with Mr. Owen's memorandums, muttering, as he went on, "Right, right--the real thing--Bailie and Whittington--where's Bailie and Whittington?--seven hundred, six, and eight--exact to a fraction--Pollock and Peelman--twenty-eight, seven--exact--Praise be blest!--Grub and Grinder--better men cannot be--three hundred and seventy--Gliblad--twenty; I doubt Gliblad's ganging--Slipprytongue; Slipprytongue's gaen--but they are sma'sums--sma'sums--the rest's a'right--Praise be blest! we have got the stuff, and may leave this doleful country. I shall never think on Loch-Ard but the thought will gar me grew again" "I am sorry, cousin," said MacGregor, who entered the hut during the last observation, "I have not been altogether in the circumstances to make your reception sic as I could have desired--natheless, if you would condescend to visit my puir dwelling"-- "Muckle obliged, muckle obliged," answered Mr. Jarvie, very hastily--"But we maun be ganging--we maun be jogging, Mr. Osbaldistone and me--business canna wait." "Aweel, kinsman," replied the Highlander, "ye ken our fashion--foster the guest that comes--further him that maun gang. But ye cannot return by Drymen--I must set you on Loch Lomond, and boat ye down to the Ferry o' Balloch, and send your nags round to meet ye there. It's a maxim of a wise man never to return by the same road he came, providing another's free to him." "Ay, ay, Rob," said the Bailie, "that's ane o' the maxims ye learned when ye were a drover;--ye caredna to face the tenants where your beasts had been taking a rug of their moorland grass in the by-ganging, and I doubt your road's waur marked now than it was then." "The mair need not to travel it ower often, kinsman," replied Rob; "but I'se send round your nags to the ferry wi' Dougal Gregor, wha is converted for that purpose into the Bailie's man, coming--not, as ye may believe, from Aberfoil or Rob Roy's country, but on a quiet jaunt from Stirling. See, here he is."