Kidnapped
and white?”
“And that is an excellent observe, Mr. Balfour of Shaws,” says Alan,
drolling with me; “and it would certainly be much simpler for me to
write to him, but it would be a sore job for John Breck to read it. He
would have to go to the school for two-three years; and it’s possible we
might be wearied waiting on him.”
So that night Alan carried down his fiery cross and set it in the
bouman’s window. He was troubled when he came back; for the dogs had
barked and the folk run out from their houses; and he thought he had
heard a clatter of arms and seen a red-coat come to one of the doors. On
all accounts we lay the next day in the borders of the wood and kept a
close look-out, so that if it was John Breck that came we might be ready
to guide him, and if it was the red-coats we should have time to get
away.
About noon a man was to be spied, straggling up the open side of the
mountain in the sun, and looking round him as he came, from under his
hand. No sooner had Alan seen him than he whistled; the man turned and
came a little towards us: then Alan would give another “peep!” and the
man would come still nearer; and so by the sound of whistling, he was
guided to the spot where we lay.
He was a ragged, wild, bearded man, about forty, grossly disfigured with
the small pox, and looked both dull and savage. Although his English
was very bad and broken, yet Alan (according to his very handsome use,
whenever I was by) would suffer him to speak no Gaelic. Perhaps the
strange language made him appear more backward than he really was; but
I thought he had little good-will to serve us, and what he had was the
child of terror.
Alan would have had him carry a message to James; but the bouman would
hear of no message. “She was forget it,” he said in his screaming voice;
and would either have a letter or wash his hands of us.
I thought Alan would be gravelled at that, for we lacked the means of
writing in that desert.
But he was a man of more resources than I knew; searched the wood until
he found the quill of a cushat-dove, which he shaped into a pen; made
himself a kind of ink with gunpowder from his horn and water from the
running stream; and tearing a corner from his French military commission
(which he carried in his pocket, like a talisman to keep him from the
gallows), he sat down and wrote as follows:
“DEAR KINSMAN,--Please send the money by the bearer to the place he kens
of.
“Your affectionate cousin,
“A. S.”
This he intrusted to the bouman, who promised to make what manner of
speed he best could, and carried it off with him down the hill.
He was three full days gone, but about five in the evening of the third,
we heard a whistling in the wood, which Alan answered; and presently the
bouman came up the water-side, looking for us, right and left. He seemed
less sulky than before, and indeed he was no doubt well pleased to have
got to the end of such a dangerous commission.
He gave us the news of the country; that it was alive with red-coats;
that arms were being found, and poor folk brought in trouble daily; and
that James and some of his servants were already clapped in prison at
Fort William, under strong suspicion of complicity. It seemed it was
noised on all sides that Alan Breck had fired the shot; and there was a
bill issued for both him and me, with one hundred pounds reward.
This was all as bad as could be; and the little note the bouman had
carried us from Mrs. Stewart was of a miserable sadness. In it she
besought Alan not to let himself be captured, assuring him, if he fell
in the hands of the troops, both he and James were no better than dead
men. The money she had sent was all that she could beg or borrow, and
she prayed heaven we could be doing with it. Lastly, she said, she
enclosed us one of the bills in which we were described.
This we looked upon with great curiosity and not a little fear, partly
as a man may look in a mirror, partly as he might look into the barrel
of an enemy’s gun to judge if it be truly aimed. Alan was advertised as
“a small, pock-marked, active man of thirty-five or thereby, dressed
in a feathered hat, a French side-coat of blue with silver buttons,
and lace a great deal tarnished, a red waistcoat and breeches of black,
shag;” and I as “a tall strong lad of about eighteen, wearing an
old blue coat, very ragged, an old Highland bonnet, a long homespun
waistcoat, blue breeches; his legs bare, low-country shoes, wanting the
toes; speaks like a Lowlander, and has no beard.”
Alan was well enough pleased to see his finery so fully remembered and
set down; only when he came to the word tarnish, he looked upon his lace
like one a little mortified. As for myself, I thought I cut a miserable
figure in the bill; and yet was well enough pleased too, for since I had
changed these rags, the description had ceased to be a danger and become
a source of safety.
“Alan,” said I, “you should change your clothes.”
“Na, troth!” said Alan, “I have nae others. A fine sight I would be, if
I went back to France in a bonnet!”
This put a second reflection in my mind: that if I were to separate
from Alan and his tell-tale clothes I should be safe against arrest, and
might go openly about my business. Nor was this all; for suppose I was
arrested when I was alone, there was little against me; but suppose I
was taken in company with the reputed murderer, my case would begin to
be grave. For generosity’s sake I dare not speak my mind upon this head;
but I thought of it none the less.
I thought of it all the more, too, when the bouman brought out a green
purse with four guineas in gold, and the best part of another in small
change. True, it was more than I had. But then Alan, with less than
five guineas, had to get as far as France; I, with my less than two, not
beyond Queensferry; so that taking things in their proportion, Alan’s
society was not only a peril to my life, but a burden on my purse.
But there was no thought of the sort in the honest head of my companion.
He believed he was serving, helping, and protecting me. And what could I
do but hold my peace, and chafe, and take my chance of it?
“It’s little enough,” said Alan, putting the purse in his pocket, “but
it’ll do my business. And now, John Breck, if ye will hand me over my
button, this gentleman and me will be for taking the road.”
But the bouman, after feeling about in a hairy purse that hung in front
of him in the Highland manner (though he wore otherwise the Lowland
habit, with sea-trousers), began to roll his eyes strangely, and at last
said, “Her nainsel will loss it,” meaning he thought he had lost it.
“What!” cried Alan, “you will lose my button, that was my father’s
before me? Now I will tell you what is in my mind, John Breck: it is
in my mind this is the worst day’s work that ever ye did since ye was
born.”
And as Alan spoke, he set his hands on his knees and looked at the
bouman with a smiling mouth, and that dancing light in his eyes that
meant mischief to his enemies.
Perhaps the bouman was honest enough; perhaps he had meant to cheat and
then, finding himself alone with two of us in a desert place, cast back
to honesty as being safer; at least, and all at once, he seemed to find
that button and handed it to Alan.
“Well, and it is a good thing for the honour of the Maccolls,” said
Alan, and then to me, “Here is my button back again, and I thank you for
parting with it, which is of a piece with all your friendships to me.”
Then he took the warmest parting of the bouman. “For,” says he, “ye have
done very well by me, and set your neck at a venture, and I will always
give you the name of a good man.”
Lastly, the bouman took himself off by one way; and Alan and I (getting our
chattels together) struck into another to resume our flight.
CHAPTER XXII
THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE MOOR
Some seven hours’ incessant, hard travelling brought us early in the
morning to the end of a range of mountains. In front of us there lay a
piece of low, broken, desert land, which we must now cross. The sun was
not long up, and shone straight in our eyes; a little, thin mist went up
from the face of the moorland like a smoke; so that (as Alan said) there
might have been twenty squadron of dragoons there and we none the wiser.
We sat down, therefore, in a howe of the hill-side till the mist should
have risen, and made ourselves a dish of drammach, and held a council of
war.
“David,” said Alan, “this is the kittle bit. Shall we lie here till it
comes night, or shall we risk it, and stave on ahead?”
“Well,” said I, “I am tired indeed, but I could walk as far again, if
that was all.”
“Ay, but it isnae,” said Alan, “nor yet the half. This is how we stand:
Appin’s fair death to us. To the south it’s all Campbells, and no to be
thought of. To the north; well, there’s no muckle to be gained by going
north; neither for you, that wants to get to Queensferry, nor yet for
me, that wants to get to France. Well, then, we’ll can strike east.”
“East be it!” says I, quite cheerily; but I was thinking in to myself:
“O, man, if you would only take one point of the compass and let me take
any other, it would be the best for both of us.”
“Well, then, east, ye see, we have the muirs,” said Alan. “Once there,
David, it’s mere pitch-and-toss. Out on yon bald, naked, flat place,
where can a body turn to? Let the red-coats come over a hill, they can
spy you miles away; and the sorrow’s in their horses’ heels, they would
soon ride you down. It’s no good place, David; and I’m free to say, it’s
worse by daylight than by dark.”
“Alan,” said I, “hear my way of it. Appin’s death for us; we have none
too much money, nor yet meal; the longer they seek, the nearer they
may guess where we are; it’s all a risk; and I give my word to go ahead
until we drop.”
Alan was delighted. “There are whiles,” said he, “when ye are altogether
too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me; but there
come other whiles when ye show yoursel’ a mettle spark; and it’s then,
David, that I love ye like a brother.”
The mist rose and died away, and showed us that country lying as waste
as the sea; only the moorfowl and the pewees crying upon it, and far
over to the east, a herd of deer, moving like dots. Much of it was red
with heather; much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags and peaty
pools; some had been burnt black in a heath fire; and in another place
there was quite a forest of dead firs, standing like skeletons. A
wearier-looking desert man never saw; but at least it was clear of
troops, which was our point.
We went down accordingly into the waste, and began to make our toilsome
and devious travel towards the eastern verge. There were the tops of
mountains all round (you are to remember) from whence we might be spied
at any moment; so it behoved us to keep in the hollow parts of the moor,
and when these turned aside from our direction to move upon its naked
face with infinite care. Sometimes, for half an hour together, we must
crawl from one heather bush to another, as hunters do when they are hard
upon the deer. It was a clear day again, with a blazing sun; the water
in the brandy bottle was soon gone; and altogether, if I had guessed
what it would be to crawl half the time upon my belly and to walk much
of the rest stooping nearly to the knees, I should certainly have held
back from such a killing enterprise.
Toiling and resting and toiling again, we wore away the morning; and
about noon lay down in a thick bush of heather to sleep. Alan took the
first watch; and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before I
was shaken up to take the second. We had no clock to go by; and Alan
stuck a sprig of heath in the ground to serve instead; so that as soon