“Oh! but the priest's there,” said I, “and it would never do for me to be leaving him there without a warning.” “A warning!” said MacKellar with contempt. “I'm astonished to hear you, Mr. Greig. The filthy brock that he is!” “If you're one of the Prince's party,” said I, “and it has every look of it, or, indeed, whether you are or not, I'll allow you have some cause to blame Father Hamilton, but as for me, I'm bound to him because we have been in some troubles together.” “What's all this about 'bound to him'?” said MacKellar with a kind of sneer. “The dog that's tethered with a black pudding needs no pity, as the other man said, and I would leave this fellow to shift for himself.” “Thank you,” said I, “but I'll not be doing that.” “Well, well,” said he, “it's your business, and let me tell you that you're nothing but a fool to be tangled up with the creature. That's Kilbride's advice to you. Let me tell you this more of it, that they're not troubling themselves much about you at all now that you have given them the information.” “Information!” I said with a start. “What do you mean by that?” He prepared to join his friends, with a smile of some slyness, and gave me no satisfaction on the point. “You'll maybe ken best yourself,” said he, “and I'm thinking your name will have to be Robertson and yourself a decent Englishman for my friends on the other side of the room there. Between here and yonder I'll have to be making up a bonny lie or two that will put them off the scent of you.” A bonny lie or two seemed to serve the purpose, for their interest in me appeared to go no further, and by-and-by, when it was obvious that there would be no remission of the rain, they rose to go. The last that went out of the door turned on the threshold and looked at me with a smile of recognition and amusement. It was Buhot! CHAPTER XXIX WHEREIN THE PRIEST LEAVES ME, AND I MAKE AN INLAND VOYAGE What this marvel betokened was altogether beyond my comprehension, but the five men were no sooner gone than I clapped on my hat and drew up the collar of my coat and ran like fury through the plashing streets for the place that was our temporary home. It must have been an intuition of the raised that guided me; my way was made without reflection on it, at pure hazard, and yet I landed through a multitude of winding and bewildering streets upon the Isle of the City and in front of the Hôtel Dieu in a much shorter time than it had taken me to get from there to the Duke of Burgundy's Head. I banged past the doorkeeper, jumped upstairs to the clergyman's quarters, threw open the door and--found Father Hamilton was gone! About the matter there could be no manner of dubiety, for he had left a letter directed to myself upon the drawers-head.