I saw him at Culloden, when all was lost, doing more than twenty of these bleezing braggarts, till the very soldiers that took him cried not to hurt him--for all somebody's orders, provost--for he was the bravest fellow of them all.

Weel, as I went by the side of Harry, and felt him raise my hand up in the mist of the morning, as if he wished to wipe his eye--for he had not that freedom without my leave--my very heart was like to break for him, poor fellow.

In the meanwhile, I had been trying and trying to make my hand as fine as a lady's, to see if I could slip it out of my iron wristband.

You may think,' he said, laying his broad bony hand on the table, 'I had work enough with such a shoulder-of-mutton fist; but if you observe, the shackle-bones are of the largest, and so they were obliged to keep the handcuff wide; at length I got my hand slipped out, and slipped in again; and poor Harry was sae deep in his ain thoughts, I could not make him sensible what I was doing.' 'Why not ?' said Alan Fairford, for whom the tale began to have some interest.
'Because there was an unchancy beast of a dragoon riding close beside us on the other side; and if I had let him into my confidence as well as Harry, it would not have been long before a pistol-ball slapped through my bonnet .-- Well, I had little for it but to do the best I could for myself; and, by my conscience, it was time, when the gallows was staring me in the face.

We were to halt for breakfast at Moffat.