Shortly we were on our way once more, and were fortunate enough before night to fall in with Cluny and his clan, who having heard of our reverse had turned about and were falling back to Badenoch. At Trotternich we found a temporary refuge at the home of a surgeon who was distantly related to the Macdonald, but at the end of a fortnight were driven away by the approach of a troop of Wolfe’s regiment.
The course of our wanderings I think it not needful to detail at length. For months we were forever on the move. From one hiding-place to another the redcoats and their clan allies drove us. No sooner were we fairly concealed than out we were routed. Many a weary hundred miles we tramped over the bleak mountains white with snow. Weariness walked with us by day, and cold and hunger lay down with us at night. Occasionally we slept in sheilings (sheep-huts), but usually in caves or under the open sky. Were we in great luck, venison and usquebaugh fell to our portion, but more often our diet was brose (boiling water poured over oatmeal) washed down by a draught from the mountain burn. Now we would be lurking on the mainland, now skulking on one of the islands or crossing rough firths in crazy boats that leaked like a sieve. Many a time it was touch and go with us, for the dragoons and the Campbells followed the trail like sleuths. We fugitives had a system of signals by which we warned each other of the enemy’s approach and conveyed to each other the news. That Balmerino, Kilmarnock, and many another pretty man had been taken we knew, and scores of us could have guessed shrewdly where the Prince was hiding in the heather hills.
Chapter XI
The Red Heather Hills
A sullen day, full of chill gusts and drizzle, sinking into a wet misty night! Three hunted Jacobites, dragging themselves forward drearily, found the situation one of utter cheerlessness. For myself, misery spoke in every motion, and to say the same of Creagh and Macdonald is to speak by the card. Fatigue is not the name for our condition. Fagged out, dispirited, with legs moving automatically, we still slithered down cleughs, laboured through dingles and corries, clambered up craggy mountainsides all slippery with the wet heather, weariness tugging at our leaden feet like a convict’s chain and ball. Our bones ached, our throats were limekilns, composts of sores were our ragged feet.
On every side the redcoats had hemmed us in, and we knew not whether we tramped to a precarious safety or to death. Indeed, ’twas little we cared, for at last exhaustion had touched the limit of endurance. Not a word had passed the lips of any of us for hours, lest the irritation of our worn nerves should flame into open rupture.
At length we stood on the summit of the ridge. Scarce a half mile from us a shieling was to be seen on the shoulder of the mount.
“That looks like the cot where O’Sullivan and the Prince put up a month ago,” said Creagh.
Macdonald ruffled at the name like a turkeycock. Since Culloden the word had been to him as a red rag to a bull.
“The devil take O’Sullivan and his race,” burst out the Scotch Captain. “Gin it had not been for him the cause had not been lost.”
The Irishman’s hot temper flared.
“You forget the Macdonalds, sir,” he retorted, tartly.
“What ails you at the Macdonalds?” demanded the gentleman of that ilk, looking him over haughtily from head to foot.
Creagh flung out his answer with an insolent laugh. “Culloden.”
The Macdonald’s colour ebbed. “It will be a great peety that you hafe insulted me, for there will presently be a dead Irishman to stain the snow with hiss blood,” he said deliberately, falling into more broken English as he always did when excited.
Creagh shrugged. “That’s on the knees of the gods. At the worst it leaves one less for the butcher to hang, Scotch or Irish.”
“It sticks in my mind that I hafe heard you are a pretty man with the steel—at the least I am thinking so,” said Captain Roy, standing straight as an arrow, his blue eyes fixed steadily on his opponent.
“Gadso! Betwixt and between, but I dare say my sword will serve to keep my head at all events whatefer,” cried Creagh, mimicking scornfully the other’s accent.
Donald whipped his sword from its scabbard.
“Fery well. That will make easy proving, sir.”
The quarrel had cropped out so quickly that hitherto I had found no time to interfere, but now I came between them and beat down the swords.
“Are you mad, gentlemen? Put up your sword, Tony. Back, Macdonald, or on my soul I’ll run you through,” I cried.
“Come on, the pair of ye. Captain Roy can fend for (look out for) himself,” shouted the excited Highlander, thrusting at me.
“Fall back, Tony, and let me have a word,” I implored.
The Irishman disengaged, his anger nearly gone, a whimsical smile already twitching at his mouth.
“Creagh, you don’t mean to impeach the courage of Captain Macdonald, do you?” I asked.
“Not at all—not at all. Faith, I never saw a man more keen to fight,” he admitted, smiling.
“He was wounded at Culloden. You know that?”
“So I have heard.” Then he added dryly, some imp of mischief stirring him: “In the heel, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, in the foot,” I told him hastily. “I suppose you do not doubt the valour of the Captain’s clan any more than his own.”
“Devil a bit!” he answered carelessly. “I’ve seen them fight too often to admit of any question as to their courage at all, at all. For sheer daring I never saw the beat of the Highland troops—especially if there chanced to be any plunder on the other side of the enemy, Egad!”
I turned to Donald Roy, who was sullenly waiting for me to have done. “Are you satisfied, Captain, that Tony meant to impute nothing against you or your men?”
“Oich! Oich!” he grumbled. “I wass thinking I heard some other dirty sneers.”
“If the sneers were unjust I retract them with the best will in the world. Come, Captain Macdonald, sure ’tis not worth our while doing the work of the redcoats for them. ’Slife, ’tis not fair to Jack Ketch!” exclaimed the Irishman.
“Right, Donald! Why, you fire-eating Hotspur, you began it yourself with a fling at the Irish. Make up, man! Shake hands with Tony, and be done with your bile.”
Creagh offered his hand, smiling, and his smile was a handsome letter of recommendation. Donald’s face cleared, and he gripped heartily the hand of the other.
“With great pleasure, and gin I said anything offensive I eat my words at all events,” he said.
“You may say what you please about O’Sullivan, Captain Macdonald. Ecod, he may go to the devil for me,” Creagh told him.
“Well, and for me too; ’fore God, the sooner the better.”
“If there is to be no throat-cutting to warm the blood maybe we had better push on to the bothy, gentlemen. I’m fain niddered (perishing) with the cold. This Highland mist goes to the marrow,” I suggested merrily, and linking arms with them I moved forward.
In ten minutes we had a roaring fire ablaze, and were washing down with usquebaugh the last trace of unkindness. After we had eaten our bannocks and brose we lay in the shine of the flame and revelled in the blessed heat, listening to the splash of the rain outside. We were still encompassed by a cordon of the enemy, but for the present we were