“How is that?” “Well, they ken where you are, for one thing, and you put yourself in their power. I am one that has small faith in Governments. What will hinder them to clap you in jail and save another reward like the first one Pitt told you about? I would never put it past a Sassenach of the name.” Then I told him it had been in my mind ever since I had seen the Minister to go to Edinburgh and give myself up to the authorities. “Are ye daft?” he cried, astonished. I could only shrug my shoulders at that. “Perhaps you fancy this business of the invasion will help you to get your neck out of the loop? I would not lippen on a Government for ten minutes. You have saved the country--that's the long and the short of it; now you must just be saving your own hide. There's nothing for us but the Continent again, and whether you're in the key for that or not, here's a fellow will sleep uneasy till he has Europe under his head.” Even at the cost of parting with Kilbride I determined to carry out my intention of going to Edinburgh. With the priest gone, no prospect of Mr. Pitt taking the first step, and Kilbride in the humour for a retreat, I decided that the sooner I brought matters to a head the better. There was a mail coach that went north weekly. It took a considerable deal of money and a fortnight of time to make the journey between the two capitals, but MacKellar, free-handed to the last, lent me the money (which I sent him six months later to Holland), and I set out one Saturday from the “Bull and Whistle” in a genteel two-end spring machine that made a brisk passage--the weather considered--as far as York on our way into Scotland. I left on a night of jubilation for the close of the war and the overthrow of Conflans. Bonfires blazed on the river-side and the eminences round the city; candles were in every window, the people were huzzaing in the streets where I left behind me only the one kent face--that of MacKellar of Kilbride who came to the coach to see the last of me. And everywhere was the snow--deep, silent, apparently enduring. CHAPTER XLII I DEPART IN THE MIDST OF ILLUMINATION AND COME TO A JAIL, BAD NEWS, AND AN OLD ENEMY We carried this elation all through England with us. Whatever town we stopped at flags were flying, and the oldest resident must be tipsy on the green for the glory of the British Isles. The seven passengers who occupied the coach with me found in these rejoicings, and in the great event which gave rise to them, subjects of unending discourse as we dragged through the country in the wake of steaming horses. There was with us a maker of perukes that had found trade dull in Town (as they call it), and planned to start business in York; a widow woman who had buried her second husband and was returning to her parents in Northumberland with a sprightliness that told she was ready to try a third if he offered; and a squire (as they call a laird) of Morpeth.