Part 4

"Certes, no," exclaimed the old woman. "This is a law-abiding hoose and I wad shelter neither Covenanter nor renegade King's man."

My words seemed to disarm her of any suspicion she might have had about me, and she busied herself stirring the peat fire.

Its warmth and the whisky which he had consumed were making Jock drowsy. He had not touched any of the food, and his chin had begun to sink on his chest. Soon he slipped from his seat and lay huddled, a snoring mass, on the flagged floor. Luckie made as though to lift him, but I forbade her.

"Let him be: he'll only be quarrelsome if you wake him, and he's quite safe on the floor."

"That's as may be," said Luckie, "but ye're no' gaun to stop a' nicht, or ye'll never catch the deserter, and ye canna leave Jock Tamson to sleep in my kitchen. I'm a dacint widda' woman, and nae scandal has ever soiled my name; and I'll no' hae it said that ony man ever sleepit in my hoose, and me by my lane, since I buried my ain man thirty years sin'."

"That's all right," I replied, "have no fear. If Jock is not awake when I go, I'll carry him out and put him in the ditch by the roadside."

The old woman laughed quietly. "Fegs, that's no' bad; he'll get the fricht o' his life when he waukens up in the cauld o' the mornin' and sees the stars abune him instead o' the bauks o' my kitchen."

I had been doing justice to the good fare of the house, but a look at the "wag-at-the-wa'" warned me that I must delay no longer. But there was something I must discover. I took my pipe from my pocket and as I filled it said: "I should think, Luckie, that you are well acquainted with this countryside."

"Naebody better," she replied. "I was born in Blednoch and I've spent a' my days between there and Penninghame Kirk. No' that I've bothered the kirk muckle," she added.

"Then," I said, "suppose a deserter was minded to make for the hills on the other side o' the Cree, where think you he would try to cross the river?"

"If he wisna a fule," she said, "he'd ford it juist ayont the Carse o' Bar. Aince he's ower it's a straicht road to the heichts o' Millfore."

"And where may the Carse o' Bar be?" I asked. "For unless I hurry, my man may be over the water before I can reach it."

"It's no' far," she said, "and ye canna miss it. Ony fule could see it in the dark."

"Well, I must be off," I said. "Grier o' Lag is no easy taskmaster and I must lay this man by the heels. I'll haste me and lie in wait by the Carse of Bar, and if my luck's in, I may catch him there. What do I owe you, and may I have some of your good scones and a bit of cheese to keep me going?"

She brought me a great plateful of scones, which I stowed about my person with considerable satisfaction; then I paid her what she asked, and, picking up Jock, bore him towards the door. He made no resistance, and his head fell limply over my arm as though he were a person dead, though the noise of his breathing was evidence sufficient that he was only very drunk. Luckie opened the door and stood by it with a candle in her hand. I carried Jock down the lane and deposited him underneath the hedge. Then I went back to the cottage to bid my hostess good night.

"If ye come through to the back door," she said. "I'll pit ye on the straicht road for the Carse o' Bar."

I followed her through the kitchen, and she opened a door at the rear of the house and stood in its shadow to let me pass.

"Gang richt doon the hill," she said, "and keep yon whin bush on yer left haun; syne ye'll come to a bed o' bracken,--keep that on yer richt and haud straicht on. By an' by ye'll strike the water edge. Haud up it till ye come to a bend, and that's the place whaur the deserter will maist likely try to cross it. Ony fule can ford the Cree; it tak's a wise body to ken whaur. Guid nicht to ye."

"Good night," I answered, as I set out, turning for a moment for a last look at the bent old woman as she stood in the dancing shadows thrown by the candle held in her shaking hand.

*CHAPTER VI*

*IN THE LAP OF THE HILLS*

As I set out I saw that the moon was rapidly sinking. Much time had been lost, and I must needs make haste. I hurried past the whin bush, and by-and-by came to the bed of brackens. Just as I reached it the moon sank, but there was still enough light to let me see dimly things near at hand. I judged that the river must lie about a mile away, and to walk that distance over unknown ground in the dark tests a man in a hundred ways. I did not know at what moment some lurking figure might spring upon me from the shelter of the brackens, and, clapping a hand on my shoulder, arrest me in the King's name. I had no weapon of defence save a stout heart and a pair of iron fists. Even a brave man, in flight, is apt to read into every rustle of a leaf or into every one of the natural sounds that come from the sleeping earth an eerie significance, and more than once I halted and crouched down to listen closely to some sound, which proved to be of no moment.

Conscience is a stern judge who speaks most clearly in the silences of the night when a man is alone, and as I groped my way onward the relentless pursuing voice spoke in my ear like some sibilant and clinging fury of which I could not rid myself. The avenger of blood was on my heels: some ghostly warlock, some awesome fiend sent from the pit to take me thither! The horror of the deed in which I had taken part in the morning gripped me by the heart. I stumbled on distraught, and as I went I remembered how once I had heard among the hills a shrill cry as of a child in pain, and looking to see whence the cry had come I saw dragging itself wearily along the hillside, with ears dropped back and hind-limbs paralysed with fear, a young rabbit, and as I looked I saw behind it a weasel trotting briskly, with nose up and gleaming eyes, in the track of its victim. I knew enough of wood-craft to realise that the chase had lasted long and that from the time the weasel began the pursuit until the moment when I saw them, the issue had been certain; and I knew that the rabbit knew. Such tricks of fancy does memory play upon a man in sore straits. I saw, again, the end of the chase--the flurry of fur as the weasel gripped the rabbit by the throat; I heard its dying cry as the teeth of its pursuer closed in the veins of its neck; and there in the dark, I was seized with sudden nausea. I drew a long breath and tried to cry aloud, but my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth; fear had robbed me of speech. Then a sudden access of strength came to me and I began to run. Was it only the fevered imaginings of a disordered brain, or was it fact, that to my racing feet the racing feet of some pursuer echoed and echoed again? Suddenly my foot struck a boulder. I was thrown headlong and lay bruised and breathless on the ground--and as I lay the sound of footsteps that had seemed so real to me was no more heard.

I was bruised by my fall and my limbs were still shaking when I struggled up, but I hurried on again, and by and by the tinkle of the river as it rippled over its bed fell on my ear like delicate, companionable music. When I reached its edge I sat down for a moment and peered into the darkness towards the other side; but gaze as I might I could not see across it. It looked dark and cold and uncertain, and though I was a swimmer I had no desire to find myself flung suddenly out of my depth. So, before I took off my shoes and stockings, I cut a long wand from a willow near, and with this in my hand I began warily to adventure the passage. I stood ankle deep in the water and felt for my next step with my slender staff. It gave me no support, but it let me know with each step the depth that lay before me. By-and-by I reached the other side, and painfully--because of my naked feet--I traversed it until I came to the green sward beyond. Here I sat down in the shelter of a clump of bushes and put on my shoes and stockings. The cold water had braced me, and I was my own man again.

As I set out once more I calculated that the sun would rise in three hours' time, and I knew that an hour after sunrise it would be dangerous for me to continue my flight in the open. For, though the country-side was but thinly peopled, some shepherd on the hills or some woman from her cottage door might espy a strange figure trespassing upon their native solitude. To be seen might prove my undoing, so I hurried on while the darkness was still upon the earth.

When day broke I was up among the hills. Now I began to walk circumspectly, scanning the near and distant country before venturing across any open space; and when the sun had been up for an hour, and the last silver beads of dew were beginning to dry on the tips of the heather, I set about finding a resting-place. It was an easy task, for the heather and bracken grew luxuriantly. I crawled into the middle of a clump of bracken, and drawing the leafy stems over me lay snugly hid. I was foot-sore and hungry, but I helped myself to Luckie's good provender, and almost as soon as I had finished my meal I was fast asleep.

When I awoke I was, for a moment, at a loss to understand my surroundings. Then I remembered my flight, and all my senses were alive again. I judged from the position of the sun that it must be late afternoon. Caution made me wary, and I did not stir from my lair, for I knew that questing troopers might already be on the adjacent hill-sides looking for me, and their keen eyes would be quick to discern any unusual movement in the heart of a bed of bracken, so I lay still and waited. Then I dozed off again, and when I awoke once more, the stars were beginning to appear.

Secure beneath the defence of the dark, I quitted my resting-place. So far, fortune had smiled upon me; I had baffled my pursuers, and during the hours of the night the chase would be suspended. The thought lent speed to my feet and flooded my heart with hope. Ere the break of morn I should have covered many a mile. So I pressed on resolutely, and when the moon rose I had already advanced far on my way.

As I went I began to consider my future. My aim was to reach England. Once across the border I should be safe from pursuit: but in reaching that distant goal I must avoid the haunts of men, and until such time as I could rid myself of my trooper's uniform and find another garb, my journey would be surrounded with countless difficulties. I estimated that with care my store of food would last three days. After that the problem of procuring supplies would be as difficult as it would be urgent. I dared not venture near any cottage: I dared not enter any village or town, and the more I thought of my future the blacker it became. Defiantly I choked down my fears and resolved that I should live for the moment only. There was more of boldness than wisdom in the decision, and when I had come to it I trudged on blithely with no thought except to cover as many miles as possible before the day should break.

When that hour came I found myself standing by the side of a lone grey loch laid in the lap of the hills. On each side the great sheet of water was surrounded by a heather-clad ridge, from whose crest some ancient cataclysm had torn huge boulders which lay strewn here and there on the slopes that led down to the water edge. Remote from the haunts of man, it seemed to my tired eyes a place of enchanting beauty; and I stood there as though a spell were upon me and watched the sun rise, diffusing as it came a myriad fairy tints which transformed the granite slabs to silver, and lighted up the mist-clad hill-side with colours of pearl and purple and gold.

I watched a dove-grey cloud roll gently from the face of the loch and, driven by some vagrant wind, wander ghost-like over the hill-side. The moor-fowl were beginning to wake and I heard the cry of the cock-grouse challenge the morn. Pushing my way through the dew-laden beds of heather, I ascended to the crest of the slope which ran up from the loch, and looked across the country. Before me rolled a panorama of moor and hill, while in the far distance the morning sky bent down to touch the earth. There was no human habitation in sight; no feather of peat-smoke ascending into the air from a shepherd's cot; no sheep or cattle or living thing; but the silence was broken by the wail of the whaups, which, in that immensity of space, seemed charged with woe. I descended from the hill-top and passed round the end of the loch to reconnoitre from the ridge on the other side. My eyes were met by a like expanse of moor and hills. Here, surely, I thought, is solitude and safety. Here might any fugitive conceal himself till the fever of the hue and cry should abate. For a time at least I should make this peaceful mountain fastness my home.

When I came down from the ridge I walked along the edge of the loch till I came upon a little stream which broke merrily away from the loch-side and rippled with tinkling chatter under the heather and across the moorland till the brown ribbon of its course was lost in the distance. Half-dreaming I walked along its bank. Suddenly in a little pool I saw a trout dart to the cover of a stone. With the zest of boyhood, but the wariness of maturer years, I groped with cautious fingers beneath the stone and in a few seconds felt the slight movements of the little fish as my hands closed slowly upon it. In a flash it was out on the bank--yards away, and soon other four lay beside it. I had found an unexpected means of replenishing my larder. With flint and steel and tinder I speedily lit a handful of dry grass placed under the shelter of a boulder, and adding some broken stems of old heather and bits of withered bracken I soon made a pleasant fire over which I cooked my trout on a flat stone. I have eaten few breakfasts so grateful since.

The meal over, I took care to extinguish the fire. Then, in better cheer than I had yet been since the moment of my desertion, looking about for a resting-place I found a great granite boulder projecting from the hill-side and underneath its free edge a space where a man might lie comfortably and well hidden by the tall bracken which over-arched the opening. Laying a thick bed of heather beneath the rock, I crawled in, drawing back the brackens to their natural positions over a hiding-place wonderfully snug and safe.

I judged from the position of the sun that it was near six of the morning when I crawled into my bed, and soon I was fast asleep. It was high noon when I awoke and peered cautiously through the fronds of the bracken on a solitude as absolute as it was in the early hours of the morning. I felt sorely tempted to venture out for a little while; but discretion counselled caution, and I lay down once more and was soon fast asleep. When I awoke again I saw that the sun was setting.

I rose and stretched my stiffened limbs. The loch lay in the twilight smooth as a sheet of polished glass. I went down to its edge and, undressing, plunged into its waters, still warm from the rays of the summer sun. Greatly refreshed, I swam ashore, dressed, and ate some food from my rapidly diminishing store. I had found in the burn-trout an unexpected addition to my larder, but it was evident that very soon I should be in sore straits.

Suddenly, I heard a shrill sound cleave the air. Quickly I crawled under the shelter of the nearest rock and listened. The sound was coming from the heather slopes on the other side of the loch and I soon became aware that it was from a flute played by a musician of skill. I was amazed and awed. The gathering darkness, the loneliness of the hills, the stillness of the loch, gave to the music a weird and haunting beauty. I could catch no glimpse of the player, but now I knew that I was not alone in this mountain solitude. The music died away only to come again with fresh vigour as the player piped a jigging tune. It changed once more, and out of the darkness and distance floated an old Scots melody--an echo of hopeless sorrow from far off years. It ceased.

I waited until the darkness was complete, and, taking a careful note of the bearings of my hiding-place, I set out with silent footsteps to the other side of the loch to see if I could discover, without myself being seen, this hill-side maker of music. Slowly I rounded the end of the loch, and stole furtively along its edge till I came to a point below the place from which I judged the melody had come. There, crouching low, and pausing frequently, I went up the slope. Suddenly I heard a voice near me, and sank to the ground. No man in his senses speaks aloud to himself! There must be two people at least on this hill-side, and my solitude and safety were delusions! I cursed myself for a fool, and then as the speaker raised his voice I knew that I was not listening to men talking together, but to a man praying to his Maker--a Covenanter--a fugitive like myself--hiding in these fastnesses. Silently as I had come I stole away and left the moorland saint alone with his God.

*CHAPTER VII*

*THE FLUTE-PLAYER*

The moon was breaking through a wreath of clouds when I came to the end of the loch again, and its light guided me to my hiding-place. As I had lain asleep all day, I was in no need of rest, so I set out along the hill-side to stretch my limbs and explore my surroundings further. All was silent, and the face of the loch shone in the moonlight like a silver shield.

The unexpected happenings of the last hour filled my mind. I had been told once and again that the Covenanters were a dour, stubborn pack of kill-joys, with no interests outside the narrow confines of their bigotry. A flute-playing Covenanter--and, withal, a master such as this man had shown himself to be--was something I found it hard, to understand. And more than once since that fatal day at Wigtown I had thought of winsome Margaret Wilson, whose brave blue eyes were of a kind to kindle love in a man's heart. She, the sweet maid, and this soulful musician of the hills, made me think that after all the Covenanters must be human beings with feelings and aspirations, loves and hopes like other men, and were not merely lawless fanatics to be shot like wild cats or drowned like sheep-worrying dogs.

I wondered whether this Covenanter had been hiding on the other side of the loch long before I came; or whether he had been driven by the troopers from some other lair a few hours before and was but a passer-by in the night. No man, in flight, resting for a time would have been so unwary as this flute-player. He must have been there long enough to know that his solitude was unlikely to be disturbed by any sudden arrival of troopers, and, if so, he must have some means of supplying himself with food. An idea seized me. If he, like myself, was a fugitive in hiding I might be able to eke out my diminishing store by procuring from him some of the food which I imagined must be brought to him by friends. But then, how could I expect that one, whose enemies wore the same coat as I did, would grant me this favour. Even if I told him my story, would he believe me?

However, I resolved that, when the morning broke, I would try to make friends with this man: but--my uniform? From his hiding-place he would doubtless observe my approach, and either conceal himself the closer or escape me by flight. Turning the matter over in my mind, I continued my walk along the loch-side, and suddenly, because I was not paying full heed to the manner of my going, my feet sank under me and I was sucked into a bog. A "bottomless" bog so common in these Scottish moors would quickly have solved my difficulties. With no small effort I raised my head above the ooze and slime, withdrew my right arm from the sodden morass, out of which it came with a hideous squelch, and felt all round for some firm tussock of grass or rushes. Luckily finding one, I pulled upon it cautiously, and it held--then more firmly, and still it held. Clinging to it I withdrew my left arm from the morass, and, laying hold on another tussock, after a prolonged and exhausting effort I succeeded in drawing myself up till I was able to rest my arms on a clump of rushes that stood in the heart of the bog. Resting for a little to recover myself, I at last drew myself completely out; and as I stood with my feet planted firmly in the heart of the rushes, I saw a clump of grass, and stepped upon it, and from it, with a quick leap, to the other side. As I stood wet and mud-drenched, it suddenly flashed upon me that this untoward event might turn to my advantage. The brown ooze of the bog would effectually hide the scarlet of my coat. Even if the fugitive on the other side of the loch should see my approach, he would not recognise in this mud-stained wanderer an erstwhile spick-and-span trooper of Lag's Horse.

I made my way carefully to the water edge and washed the bitter ooze from my face and hands. Then I took off my tunic--having first carefully taken from its pockets the remains of my store of food, now all sodden--and laid it on a boulder to dry. Then I paced up and down briskly, till the exercise brought a grateful warmth to my limbs.

I sat down and looked wonderingly over the broad surface of the loch. A wind had sprung up, warm and not unkindly, which caught the surface of the water and drove little plashing waves against the gravel edge. As I listened to their chatter I suddenly heard footsteps close at hand. Throwing myself flat on the ground I waited. Who was it? The Covenanter ought to be at the other side of the loch. Was there another refugee as well as myself on this side, or was it a pursuer who had at last found me, and had I escaped death in the bog only to face it a few days hence against a wall in Wigtown with a firing party before me?

*CHAPTER VIII*

*A COVENANTER'S CHARITY*

The footsteps drew nearer and stopped. I had been seen. There was a long pause, then a voice in level, steady tones said: "Are you a kent body in this country-side?"

I rose quickly to my feet and faced the speaker. I could see him as a dark but indistinct figure standing some yards from me on the slope of the brae, but I knew from the lack of austerity in his tones that he was no trooper, and I thought that in all likelihood he would prove to be the player of the flute.

"Need a man answer such a question?" said I. "What right have you to ask who I am?"

"I have no right," he replied, as he drew nearer--"no title but curiosity. Strangers here are few and far between. As for me, I am a shepherd."

"A strange time of night," said I, "for a shepherd to look for his sheep."

"Ay," answered the voice, "and my flock has been scattered by wolves."

"I understand," I said. "You are a minister of the Kirk, a Covenanter, a hill-man in hiding."

He came quite close to me and said: "I'm no' denying that you speak the truth. Who are you?"

"Like you," I replied, "I am a fugitive--a man with a price on his head."

"A Covenanter?"

"No; a deserter from Lag's Horse."

"From Lag's Horse?" he exclaimed, repeating my words. "A deserter?"

Uncertain what to say, I waited. Then he continued:

"May I make so bold as to ask if your desertion is the fruit of conviction of soul, or the outcome of some drunken spree?"

I have not the Scottish faculty for analysing my motives, and I hardly knew what to say. Was I a penitent, ashamed and sorry for the evil things in which I had played a part, or did I desert merely to escape punishment for my part in the drunken brawl in the tavern? I had not yet made a serious attempt to assess the matter; and here, taken at unawares in the stillness of the night among the silent hills, I was conscious of the near presence of God before whose bar I was arraigned by this quiet interlocutor.