"One who is well acquaint with Borrowstoneness and the links of Forth,"
said I.

I spoke in the accent of his own country-side, and it must have woke
some dim chord in his memory, I made haste to strike while the iron was
hot.

"There was a woman at Cramond..." I began.

He got to his feet and looked me in the face. "Ay, there was," he said,
with an odd note in his voice. "What about her?" I could see that his
hand was shaking.

"I think her name was Alison Steel."

"What ken ye of Alison Steel?" he asked fiercely. "Quick, man, what
word have ye frae Alison?"

"You sent me with a letter to her. D'you not mind your last days in
Edinburgh, before they shipped you to the Plantations?"

"It comes back to me," he cried. "Ay, it comes back. To think I should
live to hear of Alison! What did she say?"

"Just this. That John Gib was a decent man if he would resist the devil
of pride. She charged me to tell you that you would never be out of her
prayers, and that she would live to be proud of you. 'John will never
shame his kin,' quoth she."