CHAPTER XXII
THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE MOOR
Some seven hours' incessant hard travelling brought us early in themorning to the end of a range of mountains. In front of us there lay apiece of low, broken, desert land, which we must now cross. The sun wasnot long up, and shone straight in our eyes; a little, thin mist went upfrom the face of the moorland like a smoke; so that (as Alan said) theremight 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 shouldhave risen, and made ourselves a dish of drammach, and held a council ofwar.
"David," said Alan, "this is the kittle bit. Shall we lie here till itcomes night, or shall we risk it and stave on ahead?"
"Well," said I, "I am tired indeed, but I could walk as far again, ifthat was all."
"Ay, but it isna," 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 bethought of. To the north; well, there's no muckle to be gained by goingnorth; neither for you, that wants to get to Queensferry, nor yet forme, 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 takeany 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 canspy you miles away; and, the sorrow's in their horses' heels, they wouldsoon ride you down. It's no good place, David; and I'm free to say, it'sworse by daylight than by dark."
"Alan," said I, "hear my way of it. Appin's death for us; we have nonetoo much money, nor yet meal; the longer they seek, the nearer they mayguess where we are; it's all a risk; and I give my word to go aheaduntil we drop."
Alan was delighted. "There are whiles," said he, "when ye are altogethertoo canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me; but therecome other whiles when ye show yersel' 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 wasteas the sea; only the moorfowl and the peewees crying upon it, and farover to the east, a herd of deer, moving like dots. Much of it was redwith heather; much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags and peatypools; some had been burnt black in a heath-fire; and in another placethere was quite a forest of dead firs, standing like skeletons. Awearier-looking desert man never saw; but at least it was clear oftroops, which was our point.
We went down accordingly into the waste, and began to make our toilsomeand devious travel towards the eastern verge. There were the tops ofmountains all round (you are to remember) from whence we might be spiedat 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 nakedface with infinite care. Sometimes, for half an hour together, we mustcrawl from one heather bush to another, as hunters do when they are hardupon the deer. It was a clear day again, with a blazing sun; the waterin the brandy-bottle was soon gone; and altogether, if I had guessedwhat it would be to crawl half the time upon my belly and to walk muchof the rest stooping nearly to the knees, I should certainly have heldback from such a killing enterprise.
Toiling and resting and toiling again, we wore away the morning; andabout noon lay down in a thick bush of heather to sleep. Alan took thefirst watch; and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before Iwas shaken up to take the second. We had no clock to go by; and Alanstuck a sprig of heath in the ground to serve instead; so that as soonas the shadow of the bush should fall so far to the east, I might knowto rouse him. But I was by this time so weary that I could have slepttwelve hours at a stretch; I had the taste of sleep in my throat; myjoints slept even when my mind was waking; the hot smell of the heather,and the drone of the wild bees, were like possets to me; and every nowand again I would give a jump and find I had been dozing.
The last time I woke I seemed to come back from farther away, andthought the sun had taken a great start in the heavens. I looked at thesprig of heath, and at that I could have cried aloud: for I saw I hadbetrayed my trust. My head was nearly turned with fear and shame; and atwhat I saw, when I looked out around me on the moor, my heart was likedying in my body. For, sure enough, a body of horse-soldiers had comedown during my sleep, and were drawing near to us from the south-east,spread out in the shape of a fan and riding their horses to and fro inthe deep parts of the heather.
When I waked Alan he glanced first at the soldiers, then at the mark andthe position of the sun, and knitted his brows with a sudden, quicklook, both ugly and anxious, which was all the reproach I had of him.
"What are we to do now?" I asked.
"We'll have to play at being hares," said he. "Do ye see yon mountain?"pointing to one on the north-eastern sky.
"Ay," said I.
"Well then," says he, "let us strike for that. Its name is Ben Alder;it's a wild, desert mountain, full of hills and hollows, and if we canwin to it before the morn we may do yet."
"But, Alan," cried I, "that will take us across the very coming of thesoldiers!"
"I ken that fine," said he; "but if we are driven back on Appin, we aretwo dead men. So now, David man, be brisk!"
With that he began to run forward on his hands and knees with incrediblequickness, as though it were his natural way of going. All the time,too, he kept winding in and out in the lower parts of the moorland wherewe were the best concealed. Some of these had been burned or at leastscathed with fire; and there rose in our faces (which were close to theground) a blinding, choking dust as fine as smoke. The water was longout; and this posture of running on the hands and knees brings anovermastering weakness and weariness, so that the joints ache and thewrists faint under your weight.
Now and then, indeed, where was a big bush of heather, we lay awhile andpanted, and, putting aside the leaves, looked back at the dragoons. Theyhad not spied us, for they held straight on; a half-troop, I think,covering about two miles of ground, and beating it mighty thoroughly asthey went. I had awakened just in time; a little later, and we must havefled in front of them, instead of escaping on one side. Even as it was,the least misfortune might betray us; and now and again, when a grouserose out of the heather with a clap of wings, we lay as still as thedead, and were afraid to breathe.
The aching and faintness of my body, the labouring of my heart, thesoreness of my hands, and the smarting of my throat and eyes in thecontinual smoke of dust and ashes, had soon grown to be so unbearablethat I would gladly have given up. Nothing but the fear of Alan lent meenough of a false kind of courage to continue. As for himself (and youare to bear in mind that he was cumbered with a great-coat) he had firstturned crimson, but as time went on the redness began to be mingled withpatches of white; his breath cried and whistled as it came; and hisvoice, when he whispered his observations in my ear during our halts,sounded like nothing human. Yet he seemed in no way dashed in spirits,nor did he at all abate in his activity; so that I was driven to marvelat the man's endurance.
At length, in the first gloaming of the night, we heard a trumpet sound,and, looking back from among the heather, saw the troop beginning tocollect. A little after, they had built a fire and camped for the night,about the middle of the waste.
At this I begged and besought that we might lie down and sleep.
"There shall be no sleep the night!" said Alan. "From now on, theseweary dragoons of yours will keep the crown of the muirland, and nonewill get out of Appin but winged fowls. We got through in the nick oftime, and shall we jeopard what we've gained? Na, na, when the daycomes, it shall find you and me in a fast place on Ben Alder."
"Alan," I said, "it's not the want of will: it's the strength that Iwant. If I could, I would; but as sure as I'm alive, I cannot."
"Very well, then," said Alan, "I'll carry ye."<
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I looked to see if he were jesting; but no, the little man was in deadearnest; and the sight of so much resolution shamed me.
"Lead away!" said I. "I'll follow."
He gave me one look as much as to say, "Well done, David!" and off heset again at his top speed.
It grew cooler, and even a little darker (but not much), with the comingof the night. The sky was cloudless; it was still early in July, andpretty far north; in the darkest part of that night you would haveneeded pretty good eyes to read, but for all that I have often seen itdarker in a winter mid-day. Heavy dew fell and drenched the moor likerain; and this refreshed me for a while. When we stopped to breathe, andI had time to see all about me, the clearness and sweetness of thenight, the shapes of the hills like things asleep, and the firedwindling away behind us, like a bright spot in the midst of the moor,anger would come upon me in a clap that I must still drag myself inagony and eat the dust like a worm.
By what I have read in books, I think few that have held a pen were everreally wearied, or they would write of it more strongly. I had no careof my life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered there wassuch a lad as David Balfour; I did not think of myself, but just of eachfresh step, which I was sure would be my last, with despair--and ofAlan, who was the cause of it, with hatred. Alan was in the right tradeas a soldier; this is the officer's part to make men continue to dothings, they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was offered,they would lie down where they were and be killed. And I daresay I wouldhave made a good enough private; for in these last hours it neveroccurred to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I wasable, and die obeying.
Day began to come in, after years, I thought; and by that time we werepast the greatest danger, and could walk upon our feet like men, insteadof crawling like brutes. But, dear heart have mercy! what a pair we musthave made, going double like old grandfathers, stumbling like babes, andas white as dead folk. Never a word passed between us; each set hismouth and kept his eyes in front of him, and lifted up his foot and setit down again, like people lifting weights at a country play[27]; allthe while, with the moorfowl crying "peep!" in the heather, and thelight coming slowly clearer in the east.
I say Alan did as I did. Not that ever I looked at him, for I had enoughado to keep my feet; but because it is plain he must have been as stupidwith weariness as myself, and looked as little where we were going, orwe should not have walked into an ambush like blind men.
It fell in this way. We were going down a heathery brae, Alan leadingand I following a pace or two behind, like a fiddler and his wife; whenupon a sudden the heather gave a rustle, three or four ragged men leapedout, and the next moment we were lying on our backs, each with a dirk athis throat.
I don't think I cared; the pain of this rough handling was quiteswallowed up by the pains of which I was already full; and I was tooglad to have stopped walking to mind about a dirk. I lay looking up inthe face of the man that held me; and I mind his face was black with thesun and his eyes very light, but I was not afraid of him. I heard Alanand another whispering in the Gaelic; and what they said was all one tome.
Then the dirks were put up, our weapons were taken away, and we were setface to face, sitting in the heather.
"They are Cluny's men," said Alan. "We couldna have fallen better. We'rejust to bide here with these, which are his out-sentries, till they canget word to the chief of my arrival."
Now Cluny Macpherson, the chief of the clan Vourich, had been one of theleaders of the great rebellion six years before; there was a price onhis life; and I had supposed him long ago in France, with the rest ofthe heads of that desperate party. Even tired as I was, the surprise ofwhat I heard half wakened me.
"What," I cried, "is Cluny still here?"
"Ay is he so!" said Alan. "Still in his own country and kept by his ownclan. King George can do no more."
I think I would have asked further, but Alan gave me the put-off. "I amrather wearied," he said, "and I would like fine to get a sleep." Andwithout more words he rolled on his face in a deep heather bush, andseemed to sleep at once.
There was no such thing possible for me. You have heard grasshopperswhirring in the grass in the summer-time? Well, I had no sooner closedmy eyes than my body, and above all my head, belly, and wrists, seemedto be filled with whirring grasshoppers; and I must open my eyes againat once, and tumble and toss, and sit up and lie down; and look at thesky which dazzled me, or at Cluny's wild and dirty sentries, peering outover the top of the brae and chattering to each other in the Gaelic.
That was all the rest I had, until the messenger returned; when, as itappeared that Cluny would be glad to receive us, we must get once moreupon our feet and set forward. Alan was in excellent good spirits, muchrefreshed by his sleep, very hungry, and looking pleasantly forward to adram and a dish of hot collops, of which, it seems, the messenger hadbrought him word. For my part, it made me sick to hear of eating. I hadbeen dead-heavy before, and now I felt a kind of dreadful lightness,which would not suffer me to walk. I drifted like a gossamer; the groundseemed to me a cloud, the hills a feather-weight, the air to have acurrent, like a running burn, which carried me to and fro. With allthat, a sort of horror of despair sat on my mind, so that I could havewept at my own helplessness.
I saw Alan knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in anger; andthat gave me a pang of light-headed fear, like what a child may have. Iremember, too, that I was smiling, and could not stop smiling, hard as Itried; for I thought it was out of place at such a time. But my goodcompanion had nothing in his mind but kindness; and the next moment twoof the gillies had me by the arms, and I began to be carried forwardwith great swiftness (or so it appeared to me, although I daresay it wasslowly enough in truth), through a labyrinth of dreary glens andhollows, and into the heart of that dismal mountain of Ben Alder.
FOOTNOTE:
[27] Village fair.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 10 Page 33