And so, just when we came on the edge of this Beef-stand of the Johnstones, I slipped out my hand from the handcuff, cried to Harry Gauntlet, 'Follow me!'-- whisked under the belly of the dragoon horse--flung my plaid round me with the speed of lightning--threw myself on my side, for there was no keeping my feet, and down the brae hurled I, over heather and fern, and blackberries, like a barrel down Chalmer's Close, in Auld Reekie.
G--, sir, I never could help laughing when I think how the scoundrel redcoats must have been bumbazed; for the mist being, as I said, thick, they had little notion, I take it, that they were on the verge of such a dilemma.

I was half way down--for rowing is faster wark than rinning--ere they could get at their arms; and then it was flash, flash, flash--rap, rap, rap--from the edge of the road; but my head was too jumbled to think anything either of that or the hard knocks I got among the stones.

I kept my senses thegither, whilk has been thought wonderful by all that ever saw the place; and I helped myself with my hands as gallantly as I could, and to the bottom I came.

There I lay for half a moment; but the thoughts of a gallows is worth all the salts and scent-bottles in the world for bringing a man to himself.

Up I sprang, like a four-year-auld colt.