CHAPTER XXI
THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEGH
Early as day comes in the beginning of July, it was still dark when wereached our destination, a cleft in the head of a great mountain, with awater running through the midst, and upon the one hand a shallow cave ina rock. Birches grew there in a thin, pretty wood, which a littlefarther on was changed into a wood of pines. The burn was full of trout;the wood of cushat-doves; on the open side of the mountain beyond,whaups would be always whistling, and cuckoos were plentiful. From themouth of the cleft we looked down upon a part of Mamore, and on thesea-loch that divides that country from Appin; and this from so great aheight as made it my continual wonder and pleasure to sit and beholdthem.
The name of the cleft was the Heugh of Corrynakiegh; and although fromits height, and being so near upon the sea, it was often beset withclouds, yet it was on the whole a pleasant place, and the five days welived in it went happily.
We slept in the cave, making our bed of heather bushes which we cut forthat purpose, and covering ourselves with Alan's great-coat. There was alow concealed place, in a turning of the glen, where we were so bold asto make fire: so that we could warm ourselves when the clouds set in,and cook hot porridge, and grill the little trouts that we caught withour hands under the stones and overhanging banks of the burn. This wasindeed our chief pleasure and business; and not only to save our mealagainst worse times, but with a rivalry that much amused us, we spent agreat part of our days at the water-side, stripped to the waist andgroping about or (as they say) guddling for these fish. The largest wegot might have been a quarter of a pound; but they were of good fleshand flavour, and when broiled upon the coals, lacked only a little saltto be delicious.
In any by-time Alan must teach me to use my sword, for my ignorance hadmuch distressed him; and I think besides, as I had sometimes the upperhand of him in the fishing, he was not sorry to turn to an exercisewhere he had so much the upper hand of me. He made it somewhat more of apain than need have been, for he stormed at me all through the lessonsin a very violent manner of scolding, and would push me so close that Imade sure he must run me through the body. I was often tempted to turntail, but held my ground for all that, and got some profit of mylessons; if it was but to stand on guard with an assured countenance,which is often all that is required. So, though I could never in theleast please my master, I was not altogether displeased with myself.
In the meanwhile, you are not to suppose that we neglected our chiefbusiness, which was to get away.
"It will be many a long day," Alan said to me on our first morning,"before the red-coats think upon seeking Corrynakiegh; so now we mustget word sent to James, and he must find the siller for us."
"And how shall we send that word?" says I. "We are here in a desertplace, which yet we dare not leave; and unless ye get the fowls of theair to be your messengers, I see not what we shall be able to do."
"Ay?" said Alan. "Ye're a man of small contrivance, David."
Thereupon he fell in a muse, looking in the embers of the fire; andpresently, getting a piece of wood, he fashioned it in a cross, the fourends of which he blackened on the coals. Then he looked at me a littleshyly.
"Could ye lend me my button?" says he. "It seems a strange thing to aska gift again, but I own I am laith to cut another."
I gave him the button; whereupon he strung it on a strip of hisgreat-coat which he had used to bind the cross; and tying in a littlesprig of birch and another of fir, he looked upon his work withsatisfaction.
"Now," said he, "there is a little clachan" (what is called a hamlet inthe English) "not very far from Corrynakiegh, and it has the name ofKoalisnacoan. There there are living many friends of mine whom I couldtrust with my life, and some that I am no' just so sure of. Ye see,David, there will be money set upon our heads; James himsel' is to setmoney on them; and as for the Campbells, they would never spare sillerwhere there was a Stewart to be hurt. If it was otherwise, I would godown to Koalisnacoan whatever, and trust my life into these people'shands as lightly as I would trust another with my glove."
"But being so?" said I.
"Being so," said he, "I would as lief they didna see me. There's badfolk everywhere, and, what's far worse, weak ones. So, when it comesdark again, I will steal down into that clachan, and set this that Ihave been making in the window of a good friend of mine, John BreckMaccoll, a bouman[26] of Appin's."
"With all my heart," says I; "and if he finds it, what is he to think?"
"Well," says Alan, "I wish he was a man of more penetration, for by mytroth I am afraid he will make little enough of it! But this is what Ihave in my mind. This cross is something in the nature of thecrosstarrie, or fiery cross, which is the signal of gathering in ourclans; yet he will know well enough the clan is not to rise, for thereit is standing in his window, and no word with it. So he will say tohimsel', _The clan is not to rise, but there is something._ Then hewill see my button, and that was Duncan Stewart's. And then he will sayto himsel', _The son of Duncan is in the heather, and has need of me_."
"Well," said I, "it may be. But even supposing so, there is a good dealof heather between here and the Forth."
"And that is a very true word," says Alan. "But then John Breck will seethe sprig of birch and the sprig of pine; and he will say to himsel' (ifhe is a man of any penetration at all, which I misdoubt), _Alan will belying in a wood which is both of pines and birches_. Then he will thinkto himsel', _That is not so very rife hereabout_; and then he will comeand give us a look up in Corrynakiegh. And if he does not, David, thedevil may fly away with him, for what I care; for he will no' be worththe salt to his porridge."
"Eh, man," said I, drolling with him a little, "you're very ingenious!But would it not be simpler for you to write him a few words in blackand 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 towrite to him, but it would be a sore job for John Breck to read it. Hewould have to go to the school for two-three years; and it's possible wemight be wearied waiting on him."
So that night Alan carried down his fiery cross and set it in thebouman's window. He was troubled when he came back; for the dogs hadbarked and the folk run out from their houses; and he thought he hadheard a clatter of arms and seen a red-coat come to one of the doors. Onall accounts we lay the next day in the borders of the wood and kept aclose look-out, so that if it was John Breck that came we might be readyto guide him, and if it was the red-coats we should have time to getaway.
About noon a man was to be spied, straggling up the open side of themountain in the sun, and looking round him as he came, from under hishand. No sooner had Alan seen him than he whistled; the man turned andcame a little towards us: then Alan would give another "peep!" and theman would come still nearer; and so, by the sound of whistling, he wasguided to the spot where we lay.
He was a ragged, wild, bearded man, about forty, grossly disfigured withthe small-pox, and looked both dull and savage. Although his English wasvery bad and broken, yet Alan (according to his very handsome use,whenever I was by) would suffer him to speak no Gaelic. Perhaps thestrange language made him appear more backward than he really was; but Ithought he had little good-will to serve us, and what he had was thechild of terror.
Alan would have had him carry a message to James; but the bouman wouldhear 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 ofwriting in that desert. But he was a man of more resources than I knew;searched the wood until he found a quill of a cushat-dove, which heshaped into a pen; made himself a kind of ink with gunpowder from hishorn and water from the running stream; and tearing a corner from hisFrench military commission (which he carried in his pocket, like atalisman to keep him from the gallows), he sat down and wrote asfollows:
"DEAR KINSMAN,--Please send m
oney 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 ofspeed 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 thebouman came up the water-side, looking for us, right and left. He seemedless sulky than before, and indeed he was no doubt well pleased to havegot 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; andthat James and some of his servants were already clapped in prison atFort William, under strong suspicion of complicity. It seemed it wasnoised on all sides that Alan Breck had fired the shot; and there was abill issued both for him and me, with one hundred pounds reward.
This was all as bad as could be; and the little note the bouman hadcarried us from Mrs. Stewart was of a miserable sadness. In it shebesought Alan not to let himself be captured, assuring him, if he fellin the hands of the troops, both he and James were no better than deadmen. The money she had sent was all that she could beg or borrow, andshe prayed Heaven we could be doing with it. Lastly, she said, sheenclosed us one of the bills in which we were described.
This we looked upon with great curiosity and not a little fear, partlyas a man may look in a mirror, partly as he might look into the barrelof 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 ina feathered hat, a French side-coat of blue with silver buttons, andlace a great deal tarnished, a red waistcoat and breeches of blackshag"; and I as "a tall strong lad of about eighteen, wearing an oldblue coat, very ragged, an old Highland bonnet, a long homespunwaistcoat, blue breeches; his legs bare, low-country shoes, wanting thetoes; speaks like a Lowlander, and has no beard."
Alan was well enough pleased to see his finery so fully remembered andset down; only when he came to the word "tarnished," he looked upon hislace like one a little mortified. As for myself, I thought I cut amiserable figure in the bill; and yet was well enough pleased too, forsince I had changed these rags, the description had ceased to be adanger 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, ifI went back to France in a bonnet!"
This put a second reflection in my mind: that if I were to separate fromAlan and his tell-tale clothes I should be safe against arrest, andmight go openly about my business. Nor was this all; for suppose I wasarrested when I was alone, there was little against me: but suppose Iwas taken in company with the reputed murderer, my case would begin tobe grave. For generosity's sake I dared not speak my mind upon thishead; but I thought of it none the less.
I thought of it all the more, too, when the bouman brought out a greenpurse with four guineas in gold, and the best part of another in smallchange. True, it was more than I had. But then Alan, with less than fiveguineas, had to get as far as France; I, with my less than two, notbeyond Queensferry; so that, taking things in their proportion, Alan'ssociety 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 Ido but hold my peace and chafe and take my chance of it?
"It's little enough," said Alan, putting the purse in his pocket, "butit'll do my business. And now, John Breck, if ye will hand me over mybutton, this gentleman and me will be for taking the road."
But the bouman, after feeling about in a hairy purse that hung in frontof him in the Highland manner (though he wore otherwise the Lowlandhabit, with sea-trousers), began to roll his eyes strangely, and at lastsaid, "Her nainsel' will loss it," meaning he thought he had lost it.
"What!" cried Alan, "you will lose my button, that was my father'sbefore me? Now I will tell you what is in my mind, John Breck: it is inmy mind this is the worst day's work that ever ye did since ye wereborn."
And as Alan spoke, he set his hands on his knees and looked at thebouman with a smiling mouth, and that dancing light in his eyes thatmeant mischief to his enemies.
Perhaps the bouman was honest enough; perhaps he had meant to cheat, andthen, finding himself alone with two of us in a desert place, cast backto honesty as being safer; at least, and all at once, he seemed to findthat button and handed it to Alan.
"Well, and it is a good thing for the honour of the Maccolls," saidAlan, and then to me, "Here is my button back again, and I thank you forparting 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 havedone very well by me, and set your neck at a venture, and I will alwaysgive you the name of a good man."
Lastly, the bouman took himself off by one way; and Alan and I (gettingour chattels together) struck into another to resume our flight.
FOOTNOTE:
[26] A bouman is a tenant who takes stock from the landlord and shares with him the increase.