we go too fast said i this may be a lie too he may have no right orders all may be contrived by and your father knowing nothing she burst out weeping between the pair of us and my heart smote me hard for i thought this girl was in a dreadful situation here said i keep him but the one hour and i ll chance it and say god bless you she put out her hand to me i will be one good word she sobbed the full hour then said i keeping her hand in mine three of it my the full hour she said and cried aloud on her to forgive her i thought it no fit place for me and fled chapter xi the wood by i lost no time but down through the valley and by and as hard as i could it was s to lie every night between twelve and two in a bit of wood by east of and by south the south mill this i found easy enough where it grew on a steep with the flowing swift and deep along the foot of it and here i began to walk slower and to reflect more reasonably on my employment i saw i had made but a fool s bargain with it was not to be supposed that was sent alone upon his errand but perhaps he was the only man belonging to james more in which case i should have done all i could to hang s father and nothing the least material to help to tell the truth i fancied neither one of these ideas suppose by holding back the girl should have helped to hang her father i thought she would never forgive herself this side of time and suppose there were others pursuing me that moment what kind of a gift was i come bringing to and how would i like that i was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations struck me like a my feet stopped of themselves and my heart along the wood by with them what wild game is this that i have been playing thought i and turned instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere this brought my face to the path came past the village with a but all plainly visible and or there was nobody stirring here was my advantage here was just such a as had me to profit by and i ran by the side of the mill fetched about beyond the east comer of the wood through the midst of it and returned to the west whence i could again command the path and yet be myself unseen again it was all empty and my heart began to rise for more than an hour i sat close in the border of the trees and no hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch when that hour began the sun was already set but the sky still all golden and the daylight clear before the hour was done it had fallen to be half the images and distances of things were mingled and observation began to be difficult all that time not a foot of man had come east from and the few that had gone west were honest and their wives upon the road to bed if i were by the most cunning in europe i judged it was beyond the course of nature they could have any jealousy of where i was and going a uttle further home into the wood i lay down to wait for the strain of my attention had been great for i had watched not the path only but every bush and field within my vision that was now at an end the moon which was m her first quarter a little in the wood all round there was a stillness of the country and as i lay there on my back the next three or four hours i had a fine occasion to review my conduct two things became plain to me first that i had had no right to go that day to dean and having gone there had now no right to be lying where i was this where was to come was just the one wood in all broad scotland that was by every proper feeling closed against me i admitted that and yet stayed on wondering at myself i thought of the measure with which i had to that same night how i had of the two lives i carried and had thus forced her to her father s and how i was here exposing them again it seemed in a good conscience is eight parts of courage no sooner had i lost conceit of my behaviour than i seemed to stand amidst a throng of terrors of a sudden i sat up how if i went now to caught him as i stiu easily might before he slept and made a full submission who could blame me not the writer i had but to say that i was followed of getting clear and so gave in not here too i had my answer ready that i could not bear she should expose her father so in a moment i could lay all these troubles by which were after all and truly none of mine swim clear of the murder get forth out of of all the and all the and in the land and live to my own mind and be able to enjoy and to improve my the wood by fortunes and devote some hours of my youth to which would be surely a more suitable occupation than to hide and run and be followed like a hunted thief and begin over again the dreadful miseries of my escape with at first i thought no shame of this i was only amazed i had not thought upon 