CHAPTER XXVI.
HIDING WITH THE HEATHER-CAT.
As for me, when I had seen this, thinking it to be enough, I put spursto my little Galloway, and we were soon at speed over the moss-hags. Mybeast was well acquainted with moss running, for it had not carried meso often over the moor to Lochinvar for nothing. I heard tempestuouscrying, as of men that pursued, and, strangely and suddenly, behind methe roar of battle sank into silence. Once I glanced back and saw manyfootmen running and horsemen rising and falling in their saddles. But,all being lost, I left the field of Ayrsmoss behind me as fast as Imight, and set my horse's head over the roughest and boggiest country,keeping toward Dalmellington, for the wilderness was now to be my home.For the time I had had enough of rebellion under arms. I was notunfaithful to the cause, nor did I regret what I had done. But I judgedthat, for some time to come, it were better for me not to see company,for I had no pleasure in it.
Now, in further telling my tale I must put together all the incidents ofmy fleeing to the heather--for that being a thing at the time veryfrequently resorted to, it became at last a word in Scotland that "totake to the heather was to be in the way of getting grace."
Now, when I sped away to the south-east from Ayrsmoss, the folk I lovedwere all killed, and I had no hope or hold of any present resistance tothe King. But my Galloway sheltie, being nimble on its feet, took mebravely over the moss-hags, carrying me lightly and willingly as if Ihad been hare-coursing on the green holms of the Ken.
As I fled I kept glancing behind me and seeing the soldiers in redclothes and flashing arms still pursuing after. I saw also our foot(that had stood off when we charged, and only fired as they saw need)scattering through the moss, and the enemy riding about the borderswherever their horses could go, firing at them. Yet I think that notmany of them were hurt in the pursuit, for the moss at that place wasvery boss, and full of bottomless bogs, like that from which PatrickLaing drew the redoubtable persecutor Captain Crichton. This incident,indeed, bred in the breasts of the dragoons a wholesome fear of the softboggish places, which made greatly in many instances for thepreservation of the wanderers, and in especial favoured me in my presententerprise.
In a little after, two of the four dragoons that followed me, seeinganother man running like to burst through the moss, turned aside andspurred their horses after him, leaving but two to follow me.
Yet after this I was harder put to it than ever, for the sun wasexceedingly hot above and the moss as difficult beneath. But I kept toit, thinking that, after all, by comparison I was in none such an evilcase. For, though my head ached with the steel cap upon it and my horsesweated, yet it must have been much more doleful for the heavy beastsand completely accoutred dragoons toiling in the rear. So over thebroken places of the moor I went faster than they, though on the levelturf they would doubtless soon have ridden me down. But then, after all,they were but riding to kill one Whig the more, while I to save myneck--which made a mighty difference in the earnestness of our intentson that day of swithering heat.
Many a time it came to me to cast myself from my beast and run to theside, trusting to find a moss-hag where I might lie hidden up to my neckamong the water with my head among the rushes. I saw many good and safeplaces indeed, but I remembered that my sheltie would be anadvertisement to the pursuers, so I held on my way. Besides, Donald hadbeen a good friend to me, and was the only one of our company that hadever been on the bonny holms of Earlstoun. So that I was kindlyaffectioned to the beast, and kept him to his work though the countrywas very moorish and the sun hot on my head.
Once I was very nearly taken. For as I went, not knowing the way, I cameto a morass where in the midst there was a secure place, as it seemed tome. I put Donald at it, and when I reached the knoll--lo, it was onlysome nine or ten yards square--the bottomless swelter of shaking bogsgirding it in on the further side. Donald went to the girth at the firststride on the other side, so that there was nothing for it but todismount and pull him out.
Then up came the dragoons, riding heavily and cursing the sun and me.They rode round skirting the moss; for, seeing the evil case I was in,they dared not come nearer for fear of the same or worse. They kept,therefore, wide about me, crying, "Come out, dog, and be shot!"
Which, being but poor encouragement, I was in no wise eager to obeytheir summons.
But by holding on to the heather of the moss--by the kind providence ofGod, it was very long and tough--I managed to get Donald out of hisperil. He was a biddable enough beast, and, being a little deaf, he knewnot fear. For reesting and terror among horses are mostly butover-sharpness in hearing, and an imagination that they were betterwithout. But Donald had no good hearing and no bad forebodings. So whenI pulled him among the long heather, and put his head down, he lay likea scent-dog, cowered along by the side of the moss-hags. Then the pairby the edge of the morass began to shoot at me, for the distance waswithin reach of a pistol-ball. The first bullet that came clipped soclose to my left ear that it took away a lock of my hair, which,contrary to my custom, had now grown longish.
All this time they ceased not for a moment to cry, "Come out, dog, andbe shot!" They were ill-mannered rampaging lowns with little sense, andI desired no comings and goings with them. So in no long time I tired ofthis, and also of lying still to be shot at. I bethought me that I mightshow them a better of it, and afford some sport. So very carefully Icharged both my pistols, and the next time they came near, riding thebog-edge to fire at me, I took careful aim and shot at the first ofthem. The ball went through the calf of his leg, which caused him tolight off the far-side of his horse with a great roar.
"You have killed me," he cried over to me complainingly, as if he hadbeen a good friend come to pay me a visit, to whom I had done atreachery. Then he cursed me very resentfully, because forsooth (as hesaid) he was about to be made a sergeant in the company, and, what withlying up with his wounded leg, some other (whom he mentioned) would getthe post by favour of the captain.
"See what you have done!" said he, holding up his leg.
But I took aim with the other pistol and sent a ball singing over hishead, very close.
"Trip it, my bonny lad," I cried, "or there will be a hole of the samesize in your thick head--which will be as good as a cornet's commissionto you in the place to which it will send you!"
Then I charged my pistols again and ordered them away. The trooper'scompanion made bold to leave his horse and come towards me crawling uponthe moss. But I turned my pistols so straightly upon him, that he wasconvinced that I must be a marksman by trade and so desisted from theattempt.
All this made me proud past reasoning, and I mounted in their sight, andmade a work of fastening my accoutrements and tightening Donald'sgirths.
"So good-day to you!" I cried to them, "and give my compliments to yourcaptain and tell him from me that he hath a couple of varlets in hiscompany very careful of their skins in this world--which is, maybe, aswell--seeing that in the next they are secure of getting them wellpaid."
Now this was but the word of a silly boy, and I was sorry for tauntingthe men before ever I rode away. But I set it down as it happened, thatall may come in its due place, nothing in this history being eitheraltered or extenuated.
So all that night I fled and the next day also, till I came into my owncountry of the Glenkens, where near to Carsphairn I left Donald with adecent man that would keep him safe for my mother's sake. For the littlebeast was tired and done, having come so far and been ridden so hard.Yet when I left him out in the grass-park, there was not so much as themark of a spur upon him, so willingly had he come over all the leaguesof heather-lands.
While life lasts shall I not forget Donald.
My father used often to tell us what Maxwell of Monreith said when helit off his grey horse at the stable-door and turned him out afterriding him home from Rullion Green: "Thou hast done thy day's work,Pentland. There is a park for thee to fill thy belly in for the rest ofthy days. No leg shall ever cross thy back again!"
So when I came to my own in the better days, I made it my care thatDonald was not forgotten; and all his labour in the future, till deathlaid him low, was no more than a gentle exercise to keep him fromover-eating himself on the meadow-lands of Afton.
After the great day of dule, when Cameron was put down at Ayrsmoss and Iescaped in the manner I have told of, I made my way by the littleferry-port of Cree, which is a sweet and still little town, to Maryport,on the other side of the Solway, and thence in another ship for the LowCountries.
When we came within sight of the land we found that it was dismallygrey, wearisome looking, and flat. The ship-men called it the Hook ofHolland. But this was not thought right for the port of our destination,so we put to sea again, where we were too much tossed about for thecomfort of my stomach. Indeed, every one on board of the ship felt theinconvenience; and two exceedingly pious women informed me that itinterfered with their religious duties. It was upon a Thursday night, atsix o'clock, that we arrived at an outlandish place called, as I think,Zurichsee, where we met with much inhumanity and uncourteousness.Indeed, unless a Scots merchant, accustomed to adventuring to the LowCountries, had been of our company, it might have gone hardly with us,for the barbarous folk had some custom of ill-treating strangers whoarrive upon a day of carnival. They entered our bark and began toill-treat us even with blows and by taking from us what of money we had.But mercifully they were restrained before I had put my sword into them,which, in their own country and engaged in ungodliness, it had been nolittle folly to do.
Then also it grieved us very sore that we had five soldiers who had comefrom Scotland with us--the very scum of the land. They called themselvesCaptain Somerville's band; but if, indeed, they were any soldiers of hisMajesty's, then God help their captain in his command, for such a packof unwashed ruffians it never was my hap to see.
Specially did these men disquiet us upon the Sabbath-day. So dreadfulwere their oaths and curses that we feared the boat would sink becauseof their iniquities. They carried themselves so exceeding wickedly--butmore, as I think, that we, who desired not their company, might takenote of them. For at least three of them were but sullen, loutish boys,yet the others led them on, and praised them when they imitated theirblasphemies and sculduddery.
At last about eight o'clock in the evening we came to Rotterdam, wherewe quartered with a good merchant, Mr. Donaldson, and in the morning wewent to a Mr. Hay's, where from that good man (whom may God preserve) wemet with inexpressible kindness.
Thence we went to Groningen, where many of the Covenant already were. Tobe brief--that part of my life for the present not coming into thehistory--I spent four years there, the most of it with a young man namedJames Renwick, a good student, and one very full of great intents whichwere to make Scotland strong against the House of Stuart. He came fromMinnyhive, a village on the borders of Galloway and Dumfries, and was avery decent lad--though apt, before he learned modesty on the moors, totake too much upon him. We were finally summoned home by a letter fromthe United Societies, for they had made me a covenanted member ofstanding because of Ayrsmoss, and the carrying of the banner atSanquhar.
While at Groningen I got a great deal of civility because of Sandy, mybrother, whose name took me everywhere. But I think that, in time, Ialso won some love and liking on my own account. And while I was away, Igot many letters from Maisie Lennox, chiefly in the name of my mother,who was not good at writing; for her father, though a lord of session,would not have his daughters taught overly much, lest it made them vainand neglectful of those things which are a woman's work, and ought to beher pleasure so long as the world lasts.
But though I went to the University, I could not bring myself to thinkthat I had any call to the ministry. I went, therefore, for the name ofit, to the study of the law, but read instead many and divers books. Forthe study of the law is in itself so dreary, that all other literatureis but entertainment by comparison. So that, one book being easy tosubstitute for another, I got through a vast deal of excellentliterature while I studied law at the University of Groningen. So didalso, even as I, all the students of law whom I knew in Holland andelsewhere, for that is their custom.
But when at last I was called home, I received a letter from the UnitedSocieties, written in their name, from a place called Panbreck, wheretheir meeting was held. First it told me of the sadness that was onScotland, for the many headings, hangings, hidings, chasings,outcastings, and weary wanderings. Then the letter called me, as thebranch of a worthy family, to come over and take my part, which, indeed,I was somewhat loath to do. But with the letter there came a line fromMaisie Lennox, which said that they were in sore trouble at theEarlstoun, sometimes altogether dispossessed, and again for a timepermitted to abide in safety. Yet for my mother's sake she asked me tothink of returning, for she thought that for me the shower was surelyslacked and the on-ding overpast. So I took my way to ship-board withsome desire to set my foot again on the heather, and see the hills ofKells run blue against the lift of heaven, from the links of the Ken tothe headend of Carsphairn.
It was the high time of the killing when I came again to Scotland, andlanded at Newcastle. I made for Galloway on foot by the tops of theCheviots and the Border hills. Nor did I bide more than a nightanywhere, and that only in herds' huts. Till I saw, from the moors aboveLochinkit, the round top of the Millyea, which some ill-set people callan ugly mountain, but which is to me the fairest hill that the sunshines on. So at least it appeared, now returning from the Lowlands ofHolland, where one can make the highest hill with a spade in anafternoon. Ay, for I knew that it looked on Earlstoun, where my motherwas--whom I greatly desired to see, as was most natural.
Yet it was not right that I should recklessly go near Earlstoun to bringtrouble on my mother without knowing how the land lay. So I came downthe west side of the water of Ken, by the doachs, or roaring linn, wherethe salmon sulk and leap. And I looked at the house from afar till myheart filled, thinking that I should never more dwell there, nor lookany more from my mother's window in the quiet hour of even, when themaids were out milking the kye.
Even as I looked I could see the glint of scarlet cloth, and the sunsparkling on shining arms, as the sentry paced from the wall-gate to thecorner of the wall and back again. Once I saw him go within thewell-house for a drink, and a great access of desire took me in mystomach. I remembered the coolness that was there. For the day wasexceedingly hot, and I weary and weak with travel.