Part 7

When his prayer was over the old man rose to his feet, and laying a hand upon my shoulder while I bowed my uncovered head he lifted his face to the sky and gave me his blessing. There was a catch in my voice as, touched at heart and humbled, I bade him "Good night."

I walked round the end of the loch and sought my hiding-place, but though I was fatigued I could not fall asleep. The stars were glittering afar, and I wondered if at that moment she, too, were looking up at their beauty. I lived through once again all the incidents of the day in which she had played a part. I heard her sweet voice singing, I saw the light upon her hair, the glint in her eyes and, once again, I felt the pressure of her hand. There in the darkness I lifted my own right hand to my lips and kissed it--for had she not touched it? Then I fell asleep, but even as I slept she walked, an angel, through my dreams.

When I awoke my first thought was of her: then, as I looked up at the sky, I judged that the day was already some hours past the dawn. Cautiously I separated the fronds of brackens and looked along the moor. What I saw made me draw back in horror: then, with a beating heart, I took courage and peeped carefully through once more.

The troopers were upon us, and on my side of the loch there were some twenty who, scattered about, on horseback, were quartering and requartering the whole hill-side. I looked warily across to the other side of the loch. There I could see none. I knew that my safety lay in absolute stillness. A movement of one of the bracken stems beneath which I lay might betray me--even my breathing might be heard, and I knew the uncanny instinct with which a trooper's horse was sometimes aware of the presence of a fugitive when his rider might be ignorant. As I listened to the voices of the troopers, and heard the hoofs of their horses, I felt a sudden love for all the timorous hunted creatures of the earth. In imagination I saw a hare, with ears laid back, and eyes dilate with fear, lying clapped in her form.

In my extremity I thought of Mary, and wondered if she knew of my peril. My lips were dry as sand, my hands were moist, and my heart was beating loudly, so that I thought the sound of it must be heard by my pursuers. Would it be a speedy death there on the moorland, or would I be taken to Wigtown and given a trial? Life had never seemed sweeter than in that morning hour, and now fate was about to dash the cup of happiness from my lips. I dared not stir to look again through the brackens, but I knew from the sound of the voices that some of the troopers were now close to my hiding-place. With ears alert I listened. Surely that was Agnew's voice. I heard the jangle of bridle chains, and the creak of stirrup leathers: I could hear the heavy breathing of the horses--they were closing in upon me on every side. One minute more and I should be discovered, and then, death! And I, because I had learned to love, had grown afraid to die.

Suddenly, clear and shrill, the sound of a flute came from the far side of the loch. What madness was this? Did not the old man know that the troopers were upon us? In the very teeth of danger he was calmly playing a tune that I had heard more than once in the moonlit hours of the night. O fool! What frenzy had seized him?

The sound reached the troopers. I heard a voice shout, "What the devil is that?" and the tramp of the horses ceased. The player played on.... There was a sharp word of command; the horses were spurred to the gallop, and raced to the other side of the loch. As they passed my hiding-place one of them almost brushed my feet with its hoofs. The player played on.... There was no tremor in his notes; clear and shrill they cleft the moorland air. I took courage and peered out. Look where I might I could see no trooper on my side of the loch, but on the other side I saw them rapidly converging to the place from which the music came. The player ceased as suddenly as he had begun, and lying there in my hiding-place I cursed him for his folly. Never before had I heard his flute save in the hours of darkness. And then the truth flashed upon me. It was not madness: it was sacrifice! He had seen my danger, and to save me, with no thought of self, he had done this thing.

Would they find him? I, with no skill in prayer, found myself praying fervently that he might escape. Then something within me cried: "You can save him--show yourself." It was the voice of Mary, and, startled, I peered through the brackens to see if she could be near, but there was no one to be seen on my side of the loch and nothing to be heard but the trailing of the wind along the tops of the heather. "Save him!" cried the voice again. I sprang to my feet and shouted, but the wind carried my voice away over my shoulder. Then I heard loud cries on the other side of the loch and I knew that the troopers had found the Minister.... Could I save him now? ... Was any good purpose to be served by my surrender, or did it mean simply that two lives would be taken in place of one? Again I heard the voice: "Too late," it said, "too late," and it was the voice of Mary, choked with tears.

I threw myself down again, and cursed myself for a coward. I could not see what was happening on the other side of the loch. For a time there was the tumult of many voices, and then all was still. I knew what that meant. Lag or Claver'se or whatever devil incarnate might be at the head of the troop was putting my friend to the test. Would he take the oath? I knew that to him allegiance to his God was far more precious than fealty to an earthly king. I could see the whole scene: he, calm, in the circle of his accusers, with the firing party charging their weapons. I could hear the bullying voice of the commander trying to break his spirit, and then I knew--for I had seen it--that he would be given five minutes to make his peace with God. Little need for that! ... The crash of muskets tore the silence and I knew that Alexander Main, hillman, and Saint, had won his crown of glory at the last.

I felt the tears brim in my eyes, and trickle scalding down my cheeks. Then I was seized with dread once more. Would the troopers be content with this one victim, or would they come again to my side of the loch and continue their search? I knew not; I could only wait for whatever might happen. In a few minutes I should know.

I could hear the sound of the troopers' voices and their laughter, and peering through the brackens I saw the little cavalcade go back to the edge of the loch where they gave their horses to drink. In a body they marched to the end of the loch. If they swung round to the left and came again to quarter my side of the hill, my fate was sealed. With hands clenched I waited, watching. I was taut as a bow-string with suspense. The string snapped: I was free!--for when they reached the end of the loch, they set their horses to the ascent that led to the top of the hill, and in half an hour the last of them had disappeared. And there on my bed of heather beneath the brackens I lay and cried like a child.

I lay there till the sun went down; then in the gloaming I stole round to the other side of the loch to look for my friend. I found him at last. He was lying on his back, with eyes open, looking into the depth of the sky. There was a smile upon his face, a smile of pride and unspeakable joy. A great bloody gash, where the murderous bullets had struck him, lay over his heart. Beside him, face downward, lay an open book. I picked it up reverently. It was his Bible, and a splash of blood lay upon the open page across these words: "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." Gently I closed the book, and sat down beside him. I had lost a friend; a friend who had shown me the greater love; he was a Covenanter, and I--God help me!--I had been a persecutor. My heart was torn by shame and remorse: but in the dim light his quiet pale face was smiling, as though he was satisfied.

Suddenly a thought struck me. I must give him burial, and quick on the heels of the thought came another: The dead need no covering but the kindly earth; would it be sacrilege to strip him of his clothes? He had no further need of them, while I was in sore straits to get rid of my uniform. I knelt down and peered into his face. The smile there gave me courage. In life he had been shrewd and kindly, and I knew that in death he would understand. So, very gently, I began to strip him. As I took his coat off something fell from the pocket. It was his flute. I put it beside his Bible. I have kept both till this day.

Then when I had stripped him, I cast about in my mind for some means to give him burial. Not far away I knew there was a gash in the hill-side where once some primeval tarn had been. Reverently I lifted his body and bore it thither. Gently I laid it down, and standing with bowed head under the starlit sky, I pronounced over that noble dust all I could remember of the English burial service. Did ever Covenanter have a stranger burial? I trow not. Then reverently I happed him over with heather and brackens and turf which I tore from the hill-side, and laboured on until the trench was filled and I had built a cairn of stones over it.

So I left him sleeping there, and, as I turned away, I was overwhelmed by a sense of loss and loneliness.

I gathered up the clothing which I had taken from his body, and bore it to the side of the loch. There, from the coat, I washed the stains of blood, and laid it on the sward to dry.

Occupied as I had been, I was unconscious of the flight of time; but I was reminded by a sudden access of hunger. A problem faced me, for I had no food of my own. For days I had been depending on the charity of my friend; and I did not know where his store lay hidden. In that wilderness it was well secreted lest any questing bird or four-footed creature of the moorlands might find it. A sudden apprehension seized me, and, with its coming, my hunger disappeared. I hurried to the place where we were wont to take our evening meal together, and then I walked in the direction which he had usually taken when he went to fetch the provender. I sought beneath likely tussocks of heather and under the shadow of boulders and beneath the shelves of overhanging turf, where some sheep, aforetime, had had a rubbing place. But nowhere could I find a trace of his store. Baffled, I determined that I would seek my hiding-place and lie down to sleep for the rest of the night. In the morning, with the help of the light, perhaps my quest would be rewarded. So I betook myself to my heather bed, and as I crawled under the bracken--and laid myself down, I thought how, but for the divine charity of my dead friend, I should at that hour have been sleeping the sleep of death.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*PURSUED*

Morning came, clear and bright, and as I stepped out from my hiding-place I was conscious that the air of the dawn had served to whet my hunger. I hurried to the other side of the loch and renewed my search. Crouching down I ferreted in every likely nook and corner, but found nothing. Was it that there was nothing to find? Was the larder already empty, or had the troopers discovered it after they had done their deed of blood, and rifled it of its poor contents? Whatever the case, my search, repeated over and over again during the course of the morning--till I knew every blade of grass and bracken-frond on that side of the loch--revealed nothing. While I searched, my hunger abated; when I paused I was painfully conscious of it, and then, suddenly, I remembered the little trickling stream and in a moment I was bending over it seeking for trout. My search was rewarded and ere long I had caught enough to make a meal. Hunger made me forget discretion, and I lit a fire to cook them.

While the stone on which I was to broil my meal was warming in the flames, I went to the loch side and picked up the garments of my dead friend. Hastily I divested myself of my uniform, and filling the pockets, which I had emptied of my possessions, with large stones, I swam into the middle of the loch and let the heavy burden drop into its depths. Then I made for the shore, and ran in the sunlight till the air had dried me, and then aglow and breathless I donned the clothing of the dead preacher. I felt the flute in the pocket of his coat and drew it out, looking at it with fond eyes, and placed it to my lips--but as I was about to blow, I stopped. It would be sacrilege for unclean lips like mine to call one note from this the plaything and the solace of the dead saint, so I replaced it in my pocket.

I cooked my fish, and, forgetful of the risk I ran, omitted to extinguish my fire. I stretched my hands out to enjoy its warmth and watched the silver grey spirals of smoke coil like ghostly things into the blue atmosphere.

I sat in a reverie, and after awhile I rose to make another search for the undiscovered hiding-place of the old man's hoard.

I had wandered afield, and had come to the brow of the hill. When I rose from my crouching position to stretch myself, I saw a sight that chilled me. Less than half a mile away was a company of troopers who were riding at a gallop. I flung myself upon my face and prayed that my dark figure against the horizon had escaped notice, and then the thought flashed upon me that they were coming direct to the place where I was, and the fire which I had left burning was the beacon that had attracted them. Doubtless they had been continuing their search for me in another quarter of these mountain fastnesses, and now through my own folly I had shown them where to find me.

Crouching low, I raced to the loch side. Then, remembering that the loch was in the cup of the hills, and that until they reached the summit of the slope they could not see me. I rose erect and raced with all my speed to the end of the loch and on. Fear lent wings to my feet. To be safe at all I must put many miles between my pursuers and myself before I thought of hiding. The country was practically unknown to me, but I remembered roughly the way we had taken when we went to the hill-meeting, and I imagined that somewhere in that direction my greatest safety would lie.

Never stopping to look back, but with panting breath, hot-foot I ran, leaping over boulders and crashing through the heather, until my limbs almost refused to respond to my desires; then I flung myself down into a deep bed of bracken and turned to scan the way I had come. Already I had travelled far, and, when I looked back, piercing the distance with eager eyes, I could see no trace of my pursuers.

Though there was no sign of them, I dared not count on safety till I had placed a much greater distance between us or until night should fall. So, when I had recovered my breath, I left my shelter and hurried on. As I went I recognised some of the landmarks I had passed two days before, and by and by I came to the gorge in the hills where the service had taken place. As I entered the little amphitheatre my eyes wandered instinctively to the stone where Mary had sat, but, to my surprise, the stones were no longer there in orderly array. I looked to where the pulpit had been, but it was scattered. Then I knew that some of the worshippers before they left that hallowed spot had, with crafty foresight, scattered the stones that might have been a witness to some band of troopers that a "field preaching" had taken place. Wearily I ascended the slope on one side of the amphitheatre and crouching low among the heather I scanned the surrounding country. The afternoon was now far advanced, and the evening shadows were beginning to gather. Look where I might I could see no sign of my pursuers, and, glad at heart, I decided that here I should rest for an hour or two and then continue my flight when the darkness fell. There was something holy about the place, for she had worshipped here.

My long run had exhausted me, so I crawled into a clump of bracken and was soon asleep, my last waking thoughts being of Mary, and not of my danger.

When I woke the moon was high in the heavens. I was conscious of hunger and thirst, but I had not the wherewithal to appease them: but I hoped that on my way I might stumble upon some moorland rivulet, or at the worst a pool of brackish water among the moss-hags. Hunger a man can bear, but thirst is torture to a fugitive.

Somewhere an owl hooted drearily and the eerie sound in that place of desolation startled me, alive in every sense to anything unexpected.

As I began my flight once more I was conscious that my limbs were stiff, but in a few moments, as movement began to warm me, the stiffness disappeared. On a trackless moor it is ever a hard thing for a man unacquainted with the country-side to make much speed, and I had to go warily lest I should stumble, as once before, into some treacherous bog.

The wind had risen and was bringing with it an army of clouds that swept, a dark host, across the sky. Suddenly the darkness was rent by a flashing blade of light which shook like a sword of molten metal held by some giant in the skies, and then, as though a thousand iron doors were flung against their doorposts, the heavens crashed round me. The wild peal of thunder rolled through the night air. Caught by every trembling hill-top, it reverberated and reverberated again till it pulsed into silence. My ears ached. The lightning and the thunder had brought me to a standstill, when again the sky was torn by a blaze of fire. Hard on its heels came another thunderclap and with it a deluge of rain. Every drop was a missile, stinging my face like a whip-lash. Startled, I made haste to seek cover from the storm, but I had left the hills behind me and there was no friendly boulder near at hand.

I turned to look to the hill-side, when, again, a shaft of lightning like a mighty javelin hurtled earthward from the sky. The whole hill-side was lit up by its blaze, and I saw its point strike a great rock of granite that stood on the slope and cleave it in twain. The darkness closed like a door and ere the following peal hammered upon my ears I heard the crash of the shattered boulder as headlong it roared down the hillside.

The air was heavy with the smell of sulphur; the earth was sodden beneath my feet. My clothes hung heavily upon me and at every step the water oozed from my shoes.

Remembering a trick of the moor men I dropped on my knees and tore up a piece of turf and scooped away some of the underlying earth with my hands. Quickly the water oozed into the bowl from the ground round about it, and when I had given it a moment to settle, I bent and drank deeply. Then I rose and hurried on and, in the hope of discovering some shelter ere long, I broke into a run. It was a foolish thing to do, for save when a lightning flash lit up the ground I could not see more than a yard or two ahead.

Suddenly, as though a red-hot knife had struck me, I felt a stab of pain in my right ankle, and I fell upon my face. The fall winded me, and as I lay while the pitiless rain beat upon me, I tried to realise what had happened. I had trodden upon a stone which had betrayed my foot; my foot had slipped on its edge, and I knew from the pain that I had done myself an injury.

I tried to gather myself up, but every effort sent a pang to my heart. Slowly I raised myself upon my hands and knees, and then with a great effort I lifted myself to my feet, but I found that I could not bear the pressure of my injured foot upon the ground. I tried to raise it, but the movement only redoubled my agony, and, bemoaning my fate, I lowered myself gently to a sitting posture on the wet earth.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*IN THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND*

It was too dark to see the injured part, but from the increasing pressure on the edge of my shoe I knew my foot was swelling. Soon the pain of the pressure became intolerable, and with an effort I leaned over and undid the lace. This gave me some relief, but when I tried to remove the shoe the pain compelled me to desist. But, taking courage, I made trial once more and succeeded at last in getting it off. Then I removed my sock. Very gently I passed a hand over the injured part. I could feel that it was greatly swollen. My foot lay at an angle which led me to think that one or other of the bones of my leg had been broken. My heel dropped backwards, and the inner edge of my foot was twisted outward. If I kept the limb at rest the pain was tolerable; if I moved it the agony was more than I could support. The falling rain upon it was like a cooling balm, and gave me relief, but as I sat there--sodden, helpless--alone amid the desolation of that vast moorland, I was overwhelmed by a sense of my misfortune. Twice already had I escaped from the troopers' hands, and now, unless succour, which seemed outside the range of hope, should come to me, I was doomed to a lingering death.

I prayed for the dawn to break, and then I realised that dawn could bring me no hope, and I ceased to care whether it were light or dark. But the dawn came nevertheless, and with it a wind that swept the rain-clouds out of the sky. I tore up some tufts of heather and made a soft couch upon which to rest my injured limb; then, wet though I was and cold, I lay down and ere long had fallen asleep. I know not how long I slept, but when I woke my head was on fire and I was aching in every limb. My tongue was parched like a piece of leather and I was tortured by a burning thirst, so that I was fain to pluck the grass and heather that lay within my reach and suck from them the scanty drops of moisture that still clung to them. To add to my distress, I was seized with a violent shivering which shook my whole body and caused my injured limb to send stabbing darts of pain all through my being. I laid a hand upon my forehead and found that it was burning hot, and I knew that I was in the grip of some deadly fever. I called for help in my extremity, but my voice was weak as a child's and the only reply that came to me was the cry of a startled whaup. Well, what did it matter if I had to die? Surely it were better to be freed by a speedy death, than to lie there a helpless log until I should die of starvation.

I closed my eyes again and drifted into a dreamy state of partial comfort, from which I was awakened by a violent pain in my right side. My breathing had become difficult. Every movement of my chest was torment, and, to add to my miseries, I began to cough. I opened my eyes and looked into the depths of the sky as though to summon help out of the infinite; but all I could see was a pair of carrion crows that were circling above me, waiting, I had little doubt, for the moment when the breath should leave my body and their foul feasting could begin.

So this was to be the end of it--a week or two, and all that would be left would be a heap of bones, bleaching in the wind and rain of that vast moor.