Some seven hours'incessant,hard travelling brought us early in the morning to the end of a range of mountains.In front of us there lay a piece of low,broken,desert land,which we must now cross.The sun was not long up,and shone straight in our eyes;a little,thin mist went up from the face of the moorland like a smoke;so that (as Alan said)there might 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 should have risen,and made ourselves a dish of drammach,and held a council of war.
"David,"said Alan,"this is the kittle bit.Shall we lie here till it comes night,or shall we risk it,and stave on ahead?""Well,"said I,"I am tired indeed,but I could walk as far again,if that was all.""Ay,but it isnae,"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 be thought of.To the north;well,there's no muckle to be gained by going north;neither for you,that wants to get to Queensferry,nor yet for me,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 take any 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 can spy you miles away;and the sorrow's in their horses'heels,they would soon ride you down.It's no good place,David;and I'm free to say,it's worse by daylight than by dark.""Alan,"said I,"hear my way of it.Appin's death for us;we have none too much money,nor yet meal;the longer they seek,the nearer they may guess where we are;it's all a risk;and I give my word to go ahead until we drop."Alan was delighted."There are whiles,"said he,"when ye are altogether too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me;but there come other whiles when ye show yoursel'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 waste as the sea;only the moorfowl and the pewees crying upon it,and far over to the east,a herd of deer,moving like dots.
Much of it was red with heather;much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags and peaty pools;some had been burnt black in a heath fire;and in another place there was quite a forest of dead firs,standing like skeletons.A wearier-looking desert man never saw;but at least it was clear of troops,which was our point.
We went down accordingly into the waste,and began to make our toilsome and devious travel towards the eastern verge.There were the tops of mountains all round (you are to remember)from whence we might be spied at 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 naked face with infinite care.
Sometimes,for half an hour together,we must crawl from one heather bush to another,as hunters do when they are hard upon the deer.It was a clear day again,with a blazing sun;the water in the brandy bottle was soon gone;and altogether,if Ihad guessed what it would be to crawl half the time upon my belly and to walk much of the rest stooping nearly to the knees,Ishould certainly have held back from such a killing enterprise.
Toiling and resting and toiling again,we wore away the morning;and about noon lay down in a thick bush of heather to sleep.
Alan took the first watch;and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before I was shaken up to take the second.We had no clock to go by;and Alan stuck a sprig of heath in the ground to serve instead;so that as soon as the shadow of the bush should fall so far to the east,I might know to rouse him.But Iwas by this time so weary that I could have slept twelve hours at a stretch;I had the taste of sleep in my throat;my joints 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 now and 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,and thought the sun had taken a great start in the heavens.I looked at the sprig of heath,and at that I could have cried aloud:for I saw I had betrayed my trust.My head was nearly turned with fear and shame;and at what I saw,when I looked out around me on the moor,my heart was like dying in my body.For sure enough,a body of horse-soldiers had come down 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 in the deep parts of the heather.
When I waked Alan,he glanced first at the soldiers,then at the mark and the position of the sun,and knitted his brows with a sudden,quick look,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 is a wild,desert mountain full of hills and hollows,and if we can win to it before the morn,we may do yet.""But,Alan,"cried I,"that will take us across the very coming of the soldiers!""I ken that fine,"said he;"but if we are driven back on Appin,we are two dead men.So now,David man,be brisk!"With that he began to run forward on his hands and knees with an incredible quickness,as though it were his natural way of going.