[Illustration: Cover art]



[Frontispiece: ALL ABOUT ROB WERE HOARSE CRIES, GROANS, EDDYING
SMOKE, AND THE ROAR AND CLATTER OF ARMS.]



  MUCKLE JOHN


  BY

  FREDERICK WATSON

  AUTHOR OF "SHALLOWS"


  CONTAINING EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
  IN COLOUR BY ALLAN STEWART


  LONDON
  ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
  SOHO SQUARE




Published September 1914




  TO
  MRS. STEPHEN WILLIAMSON
  MY FATHER'S FRIEND
  AND MINE




  CONTENTS


  CHAP.

  FOREWORD
  I. HOW PRINCE CHARLIE CAME TO INVERNESS
  II. THE COMING OF MUCKLE JOHN
  III. THE END OF THE JACOBITE CAUSE
  IV. FRENCH GOLD
  V. LOCH ARKAIG
  VI. THE WATCHERS BY NIGHT
  VII. BURIED TREASURE
  VIII. FLIGHT
  IX. THE TURN OF THE SCALES
  X. THE LAST FLICKER
  XI. A NARROW ESCAPE
  XII. IN THE HANDS OF THE DUKE
  XIII. MISS MACPHERSON COMES TO FORT AUGUSTUS
  XIV. MUCKLE JOHN SHOWS HIS HAND
  XV. "A MUIR-FOWL SNARED"
  XVI. THE CAVE IN GLENMORISTON
  XVII. THE HOLDING OF THE PASS
  XVIII. THE WHISTLE OF THE BANSHEE
  XIX. THE DANCE OF THE MACKENZIES
  XX. AN UNWILLING ACCOMPLICE
  XXI. THE CAPTURE OF LORD LOVAT
  XXII. MISS MACPHERSON AND THE DUKE
  XXIII. THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR MEN
  XXIV. THE END OF A TALE




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

_IN COLOUR_

All about Rob were hoarse cries, groans, eddying smoke, and the roar
and clatter of arms (_see_ p. 43) Frontispiece

"Madam," said he, "I crave your pardon for this seeming incivility"

"I am the Prince," said the man upon the horse

He peered through the heather upon the beach

The holding of the pass

He was in full highland dress, with a claymore at his side

He watched one of the men unsheath his dirk and make a gesture
significant enough

With a great rattle of chains the gibbet's burden dropped with a
clatter




FOREWORD

All the world knows the tale of the Rising of 1745.  It is a story
that each generation cherishes with undiminished affection.  Some
have called it the last burst of chivalry in modern history, and
doubtless for that reason when other more vital aspects are
forgotten, the campaign of Prince Charlie will sustain its
fascination and its glamour.

In an age peculiarly commonplace and sordid, it carried the spirit of
romance well-nigh to the throne itself; in a period almost destitute
of loyalty and patriotism it glorified the reckless gallantry and
self-sacrifice of devotion.

That Charles Edward Stuart could land with only seven followers and
carry all before him into the very heart of England is wonderful
enough.  But that in the days of his misfortune and flight no one was
found to claim the reward for his life is finer still.  That poor,
unarmed, uneducated men were ready to die in hundreds is a testimony
not easily forgotten.

Of those great days when the Jacobite army marched south much has
been written, and the facts are familiar to all.  But of those grey
days following Culloden Moor less is known, and in the last
fluttering of the Jacobite Cause there is much that must necessarily
baffle and perplex the casual reader.

The Highlands were to a large extent divided in opinion.  There were
Jacobite clans, and Hanoverian clans, while between the two were men
like Major Fraser of our story, anxious to keep clear of both.  There
were devoted chiefs like Lochiel, scheming chiefs like Lovat, chiefs
who wavered and trifled like Macleod, or were downright traitors like
Glengarry and Barisdale, and there were the tragi-comedians like poor
Murray of Broughton, who was more hated than he deserved.

Finally there were, like poppies in the grain, the adventurers, men
with nothing to lose and something to gain (such as Muckle John
himself), serving no chief, nor clan, marauders more Jacobite than
Hanoverian, like birds of prey hovering for the kill.  It is of this
side of the '45 that I have principally treated.

Clan jealousies again must not be forgotten, and the universal hatred
of the Campbells played, as always, its miserable part.  Those who
condemn Cumberland and his troops must not forget that in the
persecution after Culloden the hunting down of the fugitives was
ardently pursued by the Highland militia and the men from Argyllshire.

The story of a campaign is but a lightning flash in the history of a
nation.  Long after, the thunder rolls into silence.  The Rebellion
of the '45 was only the fuse that destroyed at a blow the clan system
of centuries.  From Culloden onwards the transit of the old into the
new was swift and tragic in its coming.

FREDERICK WATSON




MUCKLE JOHN



CHAPTER I

HOW PRINCE CHARLIE CAME TO INVERNESS

It is often your stupidest boy who is most likeable in a helpless
sort of way.  Not that Rob Fraser was a nincompoop, but there was a
confiding innocency in his shadowless blue eyes that only a rascal
could have turned to his own advantage.

Rob was not accounted promising at school, and during the study of
such subjects as Latin and Greek his mind appeared to be focussed
upon the next county, nor was he regarded as reliable at games, for
his movements were in tune with his thoughts, which were more often
on the trout in the pool than on the ball in his hand.

It was this abstraction that divided him from the other boys of his
age, not because he was unpopular, not because he lacked pluck, but
just because he was silent for days at a time, and made no
confidences.  It was a state of mind that drove his aunt, good woman,
to a kind of arctic fury.  For years she strove to beat it out of
him, but it served no purpose except to send him upon the hills for
days together.

There comes a time when you can't beat a boy larger than yourself.
Not that Rob would have complained or refused to submit.  He was
indifferent to such things.  He had plenty of spirit of a dogged and
inflammatory character, but it did not lie that way.  If it consoled
his aunt to beat him, then let her do so by all means.  For all he
knew it might be the time-honoured custom of maiden aunts.

Miss Macpherson was, above all, a practical woman, and it was Rob's
dreamy obliviousness to facts that fretted her.  To sit watching
muirfowl for hours together was more than any sensible body could
tolerate.  And that was Rob all over.  He knew where the two-pound
trout lay in the burn up in the hills.  He could bring a curlew from
the next glen in a perfect frenzy of agitation to learn what was the
matter.  He would spend nights together watching fox cubs playing
under the moon.  But of school and its tasks he had no tolerance.

He was lying on the bank of a stream that spring day when it all came
about.  He did not hear the footsteps nor did he see the shadow on
the water, but of a sudden there stood a very large and pleasant
gentleman beside him, dressed in riding clothes, and with a handsome
claymore at his side.

"Cuddling?" said he very affably.  "I mind the day when I could lay
the bonnie ones in rows upon the bank."

Rob stared at him with his ingenuous eyes.

"It is fine to be young," went on the strange gentleman, "but there
were no days like the old days."

"Why do you say that?" asked Rob.

The stranger suppressed a smile at his eager curiosity.

"They have said that," he replied, "since Robert the Bruce heard it
from his grandfather."

"But were the old days so fine?"

"Fine enough," he replied absently; "fine enough and yet none sae
fine either--there is a bit tune I'm minded of..." and he took a
curious little instrument out of his pocket made of reed, shaped like
a piccolo.

Then sitting upon a rock he played a tender little air with one eye
glued to Rob to see how he took it, and his head cocked very drolly
upon the side.

"There's the 'Brogues of Fortune' for ye," he said.

"Is it a very old tune?" asked Rob, greatly taken with the gentleman.

"As old as the hills, laddie, and that's past counting--as old as the
burn and the shadows on the brae, for it's part and parcel of them
all, just strung together by mysel'."

"You made it?"

"Hech! there's nothing to skirl about.  I make them all day.  I canna
eat my dinner but my feet are dirling to a tune that has no name and
must have the go-by until I have a spare moment.  Make them indeed!"

"What else do you do?" asked Rob, in his innocent blunt way.

The stranger laughed.

"I can hear the owl passing over the brae in the night, I can see the
stag hunkered amongst the crags, I can catch the otter at his play."

"Can you call the weasel from his hole?" asked Rob.

"Maybe I can," replied the other, "but try you first."

At that, getting rather red in the face, Rob uttered a thin squeal
such as a wounded rabbit gives, like the squeal of a rat for
shrillness.  Again and again he made it, but nothing moved in the
broken place under the bank.

"None so bad," said the stranger, and distending his lips he sent
forth such a screech that it froze Rob's blood.  In it was the terror
of the chase--the fear of what was following, and the drawing of
blood.

And before their eyes, not four feet away, at the very first note the
lithe form of a weasel leapt quivering upon the heather.

"It takes a deal of practice," said the stranger gentleman for fear
he might seem overproud.

But Rob was utterly crushed.

Back dived the weasel for his lair, and lying down, the stranger told
Rob of the ways of wild things until it was dusk.  Presently without
so much as a good-day but only a nod he buttoned his coat and
crossing the burn set off up the hill, and Rob saw him no more, at
least not for two full years and over, not indeed until the Jacobites
came to Inverness in the year '46.


It was about nine of the clock on the morning of February the 18th,
1746, that two horsemen rode into the town of Inverness.

Now there might seem nothing strange in that, but rather in the
manner of their coming, which was at a headlong gallop.  Rob Fraser,
hurrying to the Grammar School, had scarce time to leap aside as they
careered up Church Street, their beasts in a lather with sweat.  Rob
gave them one quick glance as they thundered by, noting that one had
lost his hat, and the other his stirrup-irons; that both horses were
fresh, grass fed beasts new from the fields, and then, on swift,
light feet he sped in pursuit.

The Grammar School saw little of Rob when promise of news was going.
For it must be told that in the year 1746 Inverness was in a rare
tumult, and none knew just how the future lay.

In August of the preceding year Prince Charles Edward Stuart had
landed in Scotland, had won the clans to his banner, had defeated the
Government forces at Prestonpans, and had marched into England.
Receiving no support in the south, he returned to the north with his
gallant little army.  Then came the second victory at Falkirk, and
the retreat towards Inverness with the Duke of Cumberland on their
trail.

It was at such a time that two horsemen galloping recklessly through
the streets of Inverness were bound to create a commotion.  None
could say what would befall within the next few weeks.  Inverness was
Jacobite by instinct; but there was no pleasant flavour about the
word "rebel."  In truth, the good people of the town were at their
wits' end to know which way to cry.

But not so Rob Fraser.  Despite the opinions of his father, despite
the sour words of Ephraim Macaulay, the schoolmaster, and the dour
face of the minister--Rob Fraser was a Jacobite beyond recall.

For a boy of sixteen he was slightly built, but lithe and wiry as a
hill-fox.  His hair was longer than is customary to-day, and covered
by a broad blue bonnet.  His features were regular and clean-cut, the
eyes dark and sombre, his cheeks and neck tanned by wind and wild
weather.  In his rough jacket and faded kilt, with his torn and
patched stockings and his soaking brogues, he made a queer enough
spectacle--not one would say the ideal picture of a hero of romance.
He wore no sporran, such luxuries were not for him, and his kilt was
but a roll of tartan belted about his middle, but he carried himself
with all the dignity of his race.  He was a schoolboy, but out of
school he was a Fraser, and were the Frasers not in the field with
the Master of Lovat?  Those were days when schoolboys had small time
for lessons.  Only the night before Lauchlain Macintosh had eluded
the sentinels and given warning of the plan to capture Prince Charlie
at Moy Hall.  There was no speaking to Lauchlain at the Grammar
School for months after.  Indeed, things were too critical for sums
and tags of grammar.  Already the Prince was threatening Inverness.
At any moment there might be a battle at the very gates of the town,
and who could say what might happen then?

Meanwhile the two horsemen had pulled up their steaming beasts in the
market place, and the one who had lost his hat raised himself in his
stirrups and shouted for silence.  Rob, worming his way through the
people, arrived in time to hear his opening words.

"We have ridden hot-foot," the man cried, speaking in Gaelic, "for
the Pretender's army is even now marching on your town."

At that there was a sudden clamour of voices, some cheering, and not
a little hooting, for the name "Pretender" was not pleasant in
Jacobite ears.

But Inverness was in Hanoverian hands, and so the noise died away,
and all eyes were turned again upon the man on the horse.  He was a
great, red-faced fellow, very pompous and self sufficient, and had
his hair not looked so laughable through the loss of his hat, might
have impressed his auditors enormously.

The news he had brought sent a strange stir through the town.  People
began to talk in little clusters in the roadway, taverns quickly
filled with gossipers, shutters began to rattle together, and anxious
faces peered round the corners of windows.

Suddenly down the street sounded the tramp of feet, and a score of
excited eyes were turned in the hope of seeing the Highland army
march into the town.  But no--it was the Hanoverian garrison some two
thousand strong, commanded by Lord Loudon, about to evacuate.  At
that the confusion grew more intense, and ardent Jacobites could
scarce refrain from donning the white cockade, while less ardent
Hanoverians did not know whether to cheer or take to flight, and
honest tradesfolk wore long faces thinking of their goods, for who
could protect them against wild, Highland caterans, hungry from long
marching?

Rob slipped from group to group, listening to a word here and there,
feeling a bitter contempt in his heart for these people of streets
and shops.

The Hanoverian soldiers had passed out of Inverness by midday, and
crossing the Moray Firth retired into Ross-shire, and still the
clatter of voices went on, and here and there a group of men were
walking the streets with claymores at their sides, ready for the
arrival of the Prince.  At last Rob Fraser, grown weary of idling,
turned in the direction of the school, and stealing inside the
doorway was astonished to find it very quiet and empty, and with no
sign of boy or master.

Of that master, whose name was the strange one of Ephraim Macaulay,
something must be said.

He had arrived in Inverness three months earlier, on the introduction
of the Lord President Forbes, and his predecessor had been asked to
retire.  The whole business was very mysterious.  Some said the old
schoolmaster (who was a whole-hearted Jacobite) would return, and
others that he was in disgrace with the Government, and counted as a
conspirator for the Stuarts.  At any rate, Mr. Macaulay appeared, and
from the moment he had entered the place Rob had hated him with all
his heart.

Mr. Macaulay was an exceedingly tall, thin man, very straight and
smileless, with a long, hatchet face.  He was decently dressed in
black clothes, and wore silver buckles on his shoes, but there was
something strange in his manner, and in his secrecy, and there had
been rumours that he saw overmuch of Lord Loudon.  In his aspect
there was a strong resemblance to a hawk, through his habit of
staring unblinkingly into space.  For minutes together he would stand
thus, and then of a sudden he would start and stare keenly about him
with his sombre black eyes, and awaken, as it were, to his duties,
which he seemed to find utterly irksome and dejecting.

Rob went on tiptoe into the room where he was in the habit of
listening (somewhat absently) to the words of Ephraim Macaulay, and
crossing the floor, peered into the shadowy passage which led to the
schoolmaster's study.

The door was ajar, and from the room beyond came the sound of voices,
a low grumble in deep undertones, as though two men were in close
conversation--and very full of it.  He heard a chair fall as though a
man had sprung to his feet, and while he hesitated Mr. Macaulay cried
"Muckle John" in a tone of surprise and agitation.  "In Inverness,"
replied another voice strange to Rob.

Rob turned to steal away, but even as he did so the murmur of voices
ceased, and before he could make off, the study door was flung back,
and the long arm of the schoolmaster shot out and clutched his
shoulder.  It was so quickly done that he could not even duck for
safety, and before he could shake himself free, the master's
companion had cut off his retreat and gripped his arms.  He had been
caught eavesdropping.

Mr. Macaulay glanced at Rob with unmistakable malice, then, springing
to his feet, he laid hands upon his cane.

"What have ye heard?" he asked sharply, but with anxiety written all
over his face.

"Nothing," said Rob stoutly, "I did not know there was any one there."

"Come, Rob," said the master speaking with a strong lowland accent,
"I'll leather ye for eavesdropping if for nothing else," and he began
slowly approaching, his fingers twitching at his sides, moistening
his lips with the tip of his tongue.

"Are ye ready, Rob?" he said, passing round the table, his head
thrust forward, and a grim smile upon his face.

The boy took a step backward, so that a stool lay between them, and
flung a glance about him for a way of escape.  To his back lay the
fireplace, and to his right the open window, but high up and so small
that only a cat could have reached it and passed through.

"You've learned your new trade quickly," said the stranger with a
chuckle.  It struck Rob, desperate though he was, as an odd thing to
say.

Meanwhile the schoolmaster had begun to slowly unbutton his coat, and
to turn back his shirtsleeves.  His companion had seated himself near
the door--to leave ample space for what was to come.  The seconds
were flying, and still Rob stood, his eyes darting hither and
thither, until suddenly they rested upon the wall above the
fireplace.  Now an ancestor of the former master had been a man of
some prowess, and it was his claymore which hung over the
mantel-shelf, and so fascinated Rob's eyes.  The basket hilt hung
down to within three feet of his arm.  Could he but reach that!

Slowly Mr. Macaulay folded his coat and laid it down.  He relished
this prolonging of agony.  It was never his way to have done with a
thing.  He even waved the cane a little, the better to find its
balance.  And then with a swift spring Rob had leaped upon the stool
and gripped the sword upon the wall.

Uttering a cry of rage, the schoolmaster sent his cane whistling
downwards, but it fell short, and with a great wrench, Rob ripped the
claymore free, and sent it whirling in a circle about him.

And at that moment, far away, rising and falling, the flaunting skirl
of the bagpipes came floating in through the open window.  For a
moment they all stood like people in a tableau.

"The Pretender!" gasped the stranger, springing up.

The schoolmaster let the cane slide from his fingers upon the floor.

"Humph!" said he, eyeing Rob, "it's like we'll postpone your beating,
my lad."  He gloomed a little with a heavy frown upon his face, then
slowly unlocking the door, he stood aside for him to pass.  But when
he saw Rob still retained the sword he hesitated and laid a hand upon
the boy's arm.

"What's the meaning o' this?" he asked.

"It means," returned Rob, with head erect, "that I'm no pupil of
yours, Mr. Macaulay--but a soldier, should the Prince have me."

"Oh, he'll have ye right enough," sneered the master; "he's nane sae
many, and rope is cheap.  Good-bye, my bonny recruit.  We'll meet
again belike."

Taking no notice of his words, Rob hurried to the doorway and out
upon the road.

The clangour of the bagpipes was filling the narrow streets and the
cheers of the townspeople rose and fell as the Prince's troops
marched past.

Suddenly the volume of sound grew deafening, and hats were flung into
the air on every side.  For a moment he caught a glimpse of a young
man riding upon a bay horse who smiled and nodded his head, holding
his bonnet in his hand.

And in that swift vision Rob knew him for Prince Charlie, for whom he
was prepared to risk his life.




CHAPTER II

THE COMING OF MUCKLE JOHN

The muffled tramp of feet went beating past along the road.  That
such an army should have caused such utter panic to the English
throne and sent London into a condition of wild terror, was amazing,
and must ever remain so.  Ill clad, poorly armed, ragged, gaunt,
undisciplined, it presented a spectacle more like an assemblage of
starved vagrants than conquering soldiery.

Many were quite old men, many were stunted, sickly creatures,
coughing terribly as they limped along.  Boys, many without shoes or
stockings, some not more than sixteen, made up a goodly part of that
desperate force.  Many of those who owned swords had them tied about
their waists with ropes of straw.  Perhaps a third of the entire
force were capably equipped with targe, claymore and dirk, while a
number had firelocks slung across their backs.

They may have been dusty, ragged, footsore, but to Rob they were
heroes of romance.  He looked beyond their haggard faces and their
bleeding feet and shabby clothes.  They were a veteran army as yet
unbeaten.  They carried themselves with the confidence of victory,
accepting the cheers of Inverness with the air of men receiving their
due.

Through a sort of mist Rob saw the tartans swinging, looked into
unknown bearded faces, caught the glint of sunlight upon the cold
whiteness of steel.  The crowd about him began to thin; the last of
the troops had passed.  Already the road was a swaying, excited
tumult of people.

Now at the back of Rob there stood a tavern owned by Major Fraser of
Castleleathers, a former friend of Lord Lovat, but fallen into
adversity.  He was a great rubicund man some sixty-six years of age,
and with no particular interest in either Jacobite or Whig.  Rob knew
him well.  Many a happy evening had he spent listening to his stories
of the great days of long ago.

Major Fraser thought things had come to a pretty pass when English
troops were hounding good folk about the country side.  Rob heard him
say so from the tavern door.  He was standing on the top step staring
with half-closed eyes after the disappearing Highlanders.  Above his
broad red forehead, his white hair was fluttering in the quirky
February wind.

"That you, Rob," he cried, "come your ways in lad," and he shivered
and stamped within, Rob at his heels.

Inside the taproom there was a solitary occupant.  He had evidently
never stirred for the tumult outside, for his legs were upon the
mantel-shelf, and his head was sunk upon his chest.  All Rob could
see was a very broad back and a great red neck.  He took him to be an
exceedingly powerful individual, and one more used to the saddle or
the hills than taverns.

"Have they passed?" growled the man at the fire, in a deep
contemptuous voice.

"They have," replied Castleleathers, shutting the door, "and Frasers
amongst them."

"Like enough, and the Master but a boy, James, fresh from college.
His father has muckle to answer for."

"I ken fine, but who knows how this will end?  I'd no break my heart
if old Sim had his neck thrawn...."

The man at the fire brought down his feet with a bang and swerved
about on his chair.  To Rob there was something strangely familiar
about him.

"Leave your bad debts to me," he said, "I have a bone to pick with
Lovat, and..." then seeing Rob, his eyes narrowed and he fell into a
sudden silence.

"Whist!" said Castleleathers, "it's only Rob."

But the other said nothing further, only frowning at them both, and
then of a sudden he uttered a low whistle, staring over their
shoulders.

Now the window was some four feet above the ground--one single
pane--and peering through it was Ephraim Macaulay, the school-master.
For a single instant Rob saw him, then with a bound the stranger was
at the door.  He stood gazing up and down the street for a moment,
then returned.

"James," he said, "I knew I was right, and when I see yon face I
scent trouble brewing just as surely as when the corbies come sailing
over the brae."

"It's the schoolmaster," said Rob.

But neither heeded him, and without a word the Major took him by the
shoulders and pushed him out into the street, securely locking the
door behind him.  With the strangeness of it all fresh upon him Rob
clutched his claymore and began to make his way homewards.  He
wondered where he had seen the great man in Fraser's tavern before,
or whether he had dreamed of him.  The memory of him though baffling,
was curiously vivid in its way.

Rob lodged with his aunt, his mother's sister, and was not ashamed to
admit that he had a wholesome terror for Miss Margaret Macpherson.
What would she say to his plans?  What, indeed?

Miss Macpherson was very tall and exceedingly gaunt.  Her countenance
was as bleak as a wind-swept hillside, and there was a stony glare in
her grey eyes which seemed to turn the very atmosphere to frost.  Her
figure was all points and angles--jutting out where her shoulders
rose towards her neck, and seeming to extend indefinitely into her
arms.  Rob knew those long, sinewy arms with their thin, gnarled
hands ever ready to swoop.  Miss Macpherson's customary attitude was
like that of a great bird of prey, mightily beaked and clawed,
pouncing swiftly, and rising again to sit and watch upon a crag.

She was sitting before the fire as he entered, and when she saw the
sword in his hand there came over her grim countenance a quick
change--a swift tightening, as though she had received a shock but
would not own to it.

"Aunt Margaret," said Rob, with a rush to get it over, "I'm marching
with Prince Charlie's men to-morrow."

She made as though to rise, then sat where she was, only her hands
trembled as she held them to the fire.

"So schooling's over," she said, quietly, "and now we're off to the
wars, are we?  A fine spectacle that will be for your father's son.
It's the gallows now, is it, along with a rag-tag and a bonny Prince?
Ye'll want a polish to this sword, I'm thinking, and some bannocks
for your travels.  Oh, I'll cook ye bannocks, my mannie--fine, hot
bannocks."

She watched him narrowly, all the time, wishing to frighten him, and
finding that he remained unshaken she shrugged her shoulders and set
about laying the table, her long, thin arms clutching the dishes.
Rob noted with dejected eyes, that she was setting the things for one.

"How old are ye?" she asked at last, her back still turned.

"Sixteen past," he answered, slowly.

"Aye," said she, "I suppose ye are."

She stared at him then with a queer look in her face--as though she
would have beaten him had she been able.  Then, placing another
platter upon the table, she jerked her head at him to sit beside her.

"Rob," she said, after a long silence, "to me you have always been
undergrown for your years.  It seems but yesterday since ye came."

"It was eight years ago," he answered, still upon his guard.

"So long?" said she, and took up her knife, but eating nothing.

The meal proceeded in utter silence.  Rob would have given a world to
be away.  What was in his aunt's mind he did not know, he could not
guess.  Her face expressed nothing, only her eyes stared at him
unblinkingly, like the unfathomable eyes of an eagle.

"Rob," said she, at last, "when do you get your marching orders?"

"To-morrow, Aunt Margaret," he replied.  "You must not be grieved at
my going; I cannot bide here when my people are out.  Of course, we
may not leave Inverness for a while."

"Yon old fox, Lovat, is safe at home," she retorted.  "When the chief
bides it is not good for the clansmen to stir."

"But the Master is out," he hastened to add, referring to Lord
Lovat's son, who was in command of the clan Fraser.

"It is the sly pussie sits on the top of the wall.  Well, well," she
concluded, "what's done's done, and so off to bed wi' ye, and get
your sleep."

Rob, concealing his delight at his aunt's apparent complacency, rose
to his feet, and wishing her a very good night--for which she thanked
him grimly--betook himself to the adjoining room, and flinging
himself down on his bed was soon fast asleep.

It was pitch dark when he awoke some two hours later, and he awakened
so suddenly that he started up in bed listening intently.  Surely
somebody had spoken in the room!  But there was no sound, only the
crying of the night wind in the street outside.  And then there fell
on his ears a muffled murmur of voices in the kitchen, and a faint
noise like the falling of shoes upon the stone floor.  Stealing
across the room, he knelt before the door and listened with a sudden
dread in his heart.

For a moment he heard nothing at all, then to his horror he caught
the whisper of a voice he knew too well--the shrill, nasal accents of
Mr. Macaulay, the schoolmaster, in close conversation with his aunt.

So near were they both to the door that he could hear every word they
said.

"I tell you I saw him," said the schoolmaster.

"But what of that?  Every one knows that old Castleleathers is safe
as Mr. Hossack himself."

"Who cares two pins for Castleleathers--it is the other I want..."

"Ye mean the big man..."

"That I do.  If I can lay hands on him I'll fling a net over more
rebels than if we had Lovat himsel'."

"But Rob knows nothing of this.  He's only a laddie gone daft over
soldiers.  He'll have forgotten all about it in the morning."

"Not he--but if he can tell me where one whose name I'll no breathe
to you nor to any one else, can be found, I'll see his neck is safe."

"Then on wi' ye," whispered Miss Macpherson, "for I doubt we must
save Rob if we can.  Ye hae the rope."

"That have I," returned the master.

Then followed complete silence, and a second later the faint creaking
of the door behind which he crouched.  Rob sprang to his feet, and
paused irresolutely.  He was unarmed and helpless.

Very slowly the door began to open.  He knew it by the draught of air
upon his face.  In the pitch darkness he leaned close to the wall
waiting for them to pass him towards the bed.

But at that moment there sounded very faintly, like the sighing of
the wind--the far-off catch of a tune--a little twisted coil of
melody such as the fairies dance to.

"Hold!" whispered Macaulay, in a low tense voice.

"It is but a laddie's whistle," snapped Miss Macpherson, "haste ye."

But he appeared to have a dread of something in his mind.

"That is no boy's whistle," he replied sullenly, "but the pipe o'
Muckle John."

Then Rob could have shouted for joy, for he knew in a trice who the
great man in Fraser's tavern had been, who but the stranger on the
moor who had lured the weasel from his lair.  Nearer came the ripple
of music, and then sounded a lusty banging at the street door and a
man's voice shouting for entry.

"Whist!" said his aunt, and again came the knocking.

"Wha's there?" she cried.

"Open!" returned the voice--a deep bass voice like the noise of a
bull.  "Open in the name of the King!"

"Better open, Mistress Macpherson," counselled the master; "though I
would I were out of here.  If I had a sword, but who ever saw a
dominie with such a thing?" and he laughed ruefully, while a furious
knocking beat upon the door.  Presently Rob saw the yellow light of a
candle, and heard the falling back of the bolts.

A cold burst of night air rushed into the place, and with it there
entered a great, formidable looking man, so tall that he must needs
bend nearly double to enter, dressed in riding clothes, and with his
hat rammed down upon his face.

Rob slid into the room.  Beside him stood Mr. Macaulay, the rope
still dangling in his hands.  His aunt was facing the stranger,
holding the candle high so that its rays fell upon his face.

So they stood for a moment, and then the stranger closed the door
behind him, swung off his hat, and made a sweeping bow.

[Illustration: "MADAM," SAID HE, "I CRAVE YOUR PARDON FOR THIS
SEEMING INCIVILITY."]

"Madam," said he, "I crave your pardon for this seeming incivility;
but I am new come to Inverness, and am quartered here until
to-morrow."

(Not so new-come thought Rob, mindful of Fraser's tavern.)

All the time the stranger's alert blue eyes were speeding hither and
thither about the room.  They paused for a moment on the rope in the
master's hands, took in Rob at a glance (but with no appearance of
recognition which grieved him), and then returned to Miss Macpherson,
who had never acknowledged his presence by word or nod.

"Sir," said Rob to the stranger, "Mr. Macaulay was even now enquiring
for you."

"Thank ye," he replied, "but I have already seen the rope in his
hands.  Maybe it could be used for a better purpose..."

Mr. Macaulay was as near to the door as the stranger.  With a bound
he reached it, and flung it back.  And then with another swirl of air
he was gone into the night.

The stranger watched his departure with upraised brows and a smile
upon his lips, then he stepped to the door and closed it, bolting it
with careful hands.

"For the present," said he, turning to Rob, "he's gone: You are not
afraid of my company, are you?"

He grasped him gently by each shoulder as he spoke, and looked into
his eyes.

Rob shook his head.  Afraid of the man of the moor!  He was suddenly
overtaken by a curious shyness of this mysterious man with his
shrewd, inscrutable blue eyes, his great Highland nose, the whimsical
twist that lurked at the corners of his mouth, and his massive head
far up near the rafters through the vast height of him.

His clothes had a foreign cut, and he betrayed the inflection of a
strange accent underlying his words accompanied by occasional
gestures of the hands that strike a northerner as affected and
womanly.  His voice was very deep and soft and so persuasive that few
could withstand him.  Even in anger it was never harsh--but some said
he never permitted himself to grow angry and for that very reason
always won his own way.  Even Miss Macpherson only angered him once.

Meanwhile the stranger was eyeing them both with droll intentness.
If only the honest can meet another's gaze without flinching then he
must have been a very honest man indeed, for there were few he could
not stare down, and what is more take a relish in so doing.

"How are you named?" he asked, still grasping the boy by the shoulder.

"My name is Rob Fraser," he replied, "and this is my aunt, Miss
Macpherson."

"Then I am in good company," he said, and letting go of Rob began to
warm his hands at the fire, turning them backwards and forwards to
the blaze.  "It is good," he mused after a while, "to have peat reek
in one's nostrils once again.  What a bonny room this is.  There are
few pans like those in Inverness I'll warrant.  I would like fine to
taste a bannock of your cooking, Miss Macpherson.  I know a good
bannock when I see it, and it's long since I've had a taste of old
Scotland..." at which he sighed and stared upon the ground.

Somewhat mollified, despite herself, Miss Macpherson set the table
again, and busied herself amongst her household utensils.  Over the
peat fire a pot was swinging on a chain from a cross beam above.  The
place was full of the rare smell of it.  But the stranger said
nothing, though he must have been eying out for a basinful.  Instead
he drew Rob to the fire, and spoke to him in his low musical voice,
sitting upon a stool with his great coat hung up upon a peg beside
him and the steam rising from it and losing itself in the blueness of
the peat reek.

"I saw ye the day," he said.  "It was just after our forces, heaven
help them, had passed.  I canna bear to look at them.  I feel like a
man watching a procession of bairns and dying men..."

"Have you been in another war?" asked Rob.

"War," said he, "this is not war.  Man Rob, I've served all over
Europe and seen the armies of Frederick advance like the thunder of
surf on a western isle.  I have seen service in Poland, Austria, and
the Netherlands.  I have fought under Saxe."

He paused and seemed to draw some pleasure from Rob's flushed face
and eager eyes.

"Last year I lay before Tournay under a starlit sky while all around
me breathed thousands of men who lay before many hours on the field
of Fontenoy.  That is war, Rob, not skirling up and down the country
with a few hundred puir Hielan' bodies."

"But I am enlisting," he said, considerably chilled by such words.

The stranger sniffed over the pot most audibly.  The savour was more
than a hungry man could tolerate.

"You would make a rare campaigner, Miss Macpherson," he said, "Rob is
surely daft to think of losing such a stew for all the thrones of
Europe."

"It is only an ordinary stew," she said, with a faint flush on her
cheeks.

"It may be for you, Miss Macpherson--I'll no deny it--but as a man
not strange to stews I'd call it by another name..." and he smacked
his lips and drew in another draught of it with relish.

"Weel, weel," murmured Miss Macpherson, and taking off the lid she
set a knife into a piece of meat and with a spoon she emptied the
gravy upon a plate.

"Draw in your stool," she said, and laid the bannocks beside him.
Then after a momentary hesitation she laid a round black bottle upon
the table.  "It is from Laggan way," she said.

"A bonny country," he replied, and without delay set to with the
greatest zest.

Meanwhile Rob drew near the fire, and laid a peat or two upon the
dying glow.  He suddenly remembered how near he had been to falling
the prey to his aunt's schemes, and yet to look at her face one would
have said she suffered no disappointment or resentment.  There was a
strong vein of fatalism in Miss Macpherson.

When the stranger had finished eating he pushed back his stool, and
wiped his mouth very genteelly with a kerchief.

"And now, sir," said he, addressing Rob, "what is this talk of the
wars?"

"Aye," re-echoed Miss Macpherson, brightening, "ye may well ask that,
Mister..." she hesitated.

"No matter," he replied quickly, "my name will keep."

"I want to fight for the Prince," said Rob, sturdily; "I have this
claymore."  And he brought it from the corner where it lay.

One look was sufficient for the stranger.

"Ye are a hundred years too late, my man," he said, regarding the
rusty sword with a critical eye.

"It is all I have," said Rob.

"And all ye are good for," retorted his aunt.

The stranger meanwhile sat with his chin resting on one hand, a frown
upon his face.  Of a sudden he stirred fretfully.

"What sort of talk is this?" he cried.  "To-morrow or the next day
will see us scattered like muir fowl; but we've had a run for our
money, whereas, you, poor lad, will have a sair run for your life.
Bide a wee--there will be other risings," at which he stopped, and
won a smile from Miss Macpherson for his brave advice.

"Thank ye, sir," she said, cordially; "and listen to the gentleman,
Rob, for he speaks true words."

Rob was about to break in when the stranger motioned him to silence.

"Tak' your time," said he, "and choose your ain gait, for there's a
kind of empty satisfaction in that at a time--and I will play a bit
tune, if I may."  At which he bowed to Miss Macpherson, and she bowed
back, and that none so stiffly.

Then drawing the selfsame reed from his greatcoat pocket that Rob had
heard two years before, he began to play, and the manner of his
playing was like the singing of a mavis at twilight.  He played tunes
both Scottish and foreign, strange, melancholy snatches of music very
haunting to hear, and then, quite suddenly, he broke into a Jacobite
melody, and Rob sat with eyes glued upon him, while a great stillness
crept over the place.

The fire had died down, and the room fallen into darkness when he
ceased, and it was only to lay the pipe upon the table.  For out of
the silence came the most wonderful voice; and the strange gentleman,
rising to his feet, was singing an old Highland lament as though his
heart would break.  Rob stole a look at his aunt, and saw her
lip--that iron, resolute lip--was trembling.  Even the stranger's
voice broke through the utter sadness of it all, at which he coughed
and smiled, and then before Rob could raise his eyes (it seemed to
him to have no beginning at all, so quickly was it done) the stranger
was upon his feet, and even while Miss Macpherson was secretively
concealing a tear he had snatched up his whistle and was in the very
middle of a Highland reel.  With his fingers rippling up and down the
holes of the thing, and the rakish tilt of his head, and the manner
in which he kept time with his feet, and his shoulders and his whole
body--with all of this and the dancing firelight and the wind shut
out upon the street--the thing was like the work of a bogie.  Had he
been a little man with silver buttons and silver-buckle shoes and a
velvet jacket, then there is no saying but that he might have played
himself up the chimney and over the heather, with Rob and Miss
Macpherson at his coat-tails.

The music grew faster.  It grew wilder.  It brought Rob to his feet
and sent him skipping and snapping his fingers in a frenzy.  The
stranger was here and there, missing notes because he could not do
everything at once, and turn at the same time.  And then just when
the rant was at its height Miss Macpherson was at it too, first
skirts held daintily from the ground, then arms akimbo, bowing,
twirling, spinning.  The stranger threw aside his pipe.  He sang the
lilt of it instead, and so facing Miss Macpherson they capered and
linked arms and clapped their hands and hooched until the stools were
jumping all over the floor and the bannocks after them, and the table
rocked upon its legs in the corner.

"Well, my lad," panted the gentleman after it was over, wiping his
face, "have ye settled the matter?"

"Sir," cried Rob, "it's the Prince for me."

"Well, well," said he, seating himself again, as though he had
guessed as much.

"I believe ye sang so on purpose," snapped Mistress Macpherson, now
thoroughly awakened to the danger, and considerably ashamed of
herself.

"On my oath, madam," he replied, "I advised the lad against it--ye
heard me with your ain ears."

"But thae songs?"

"Tuts," he said, "what are songs?"

The dawn was already in the east, and a faint grey light shone
beneath the door.

With a start, the stranger rose to his feet.

"The day is near," he said, sombrely, "I must be stepping"; and for a
breath or two he looked Rob in the eyes.

"And I, too, if I may go with you," said Rob, casting a glance at his
aunt.

For a moment she struggled with her anger, then, taking him roughly
by the shoulder, she shook him.

"Go then," she cried, "but dinna say it was with my leave.  And you,
sir, do what you can for him."

"Madam," said the stranger, wrapping his greatcoat about him, "I
promise you that."

"What name do ye go by?" asked Mistress Macpherson, of a sudden.

He appeared for an instant slightly put about.

"The name I go by," repeated he, "is Muckle John."

"That's no sort of name," she snapped.

"It's sufficient for me," he replied, and touching Rob on the
shoulder, they passed into the street.

From far away came the shrill notes of many bagpipes, and the faint
stirring of assembling men.

"Rob," said Muckle John, slyly, "I thought you had forgotten."

"I knew you at once," said Rob, "but you never looked at me."

"Did I no," said Muckle John, "maybe there were reasons, Rob--there
are folk would do the world for a friend of mine, but there are
others, Rob--there are others."




CHAPTER III

THE END OF THE JACOBITE CAUSE

The position of Prince Charlie in Inverness was exceedingly critical.
To the north lay the forces of Lord Loudon.  To the east and south
were the Hanoverian army commanded by the Duke of Cumberland now
stationed at Aberdeen.  But his position was rendered even more
precarious by lack of foresight in ignoring the advice of Lord George
Murray, and refusing to provide a supply of provision in the
Highlands.

Judging that the Duke would not advance for some weeks, the Prince
decided on the reduction of various forts and positions held by the
enemy, and above all the destruction of Lord Loudon's army.

It was arranged, therefore, that Lord Cromartie (one of those
incompetent officers who handicapped the Jacobite cause) should
advance upon Lord Loudon in order that the menace from the north
might be destroyed, and this, he prepared to do, accompanied by the
Mackenzies, the Mackintoshes, Macgregors and others.

The preparations for this expedition were under discussion when
Muckle John and Rob came into the main street.  For a while they
walked along in silence, Muckle John grown suddenly gravely absorbed,
and taking such great strides that Rob was hard put to it to keep up.
The dawn was come, and with it the town of Inverness began to hum and
buzz like a hive of bees.  Men, quartered in every house along the
narrow street, commenced to pour out upon the highway, some putting
on their sword-belts as they came, others wiping sleep out of their
tired eyes with their knuckled hands.

It was the sight of their claymores that sent Muckle John's
flickering eyes upon his companion.

"My lad," said he, stopping abruptly, "there's one thing we must be
seeing too.  For cutting firewood or driving bestial,* I have no
doubt yon weapon might serve as well as another, but for the game of
war it is disappointing," and whipping out his own sword he made a
parry or two, and winked at him.


* Cattle.


"What do ye think o' that?" said he, and drove it home again into the
scabbard.

"I think it's bonny," said Rob shivering with the chill wind.

"Bonny--you Fraser loon--what kind of word is that for the sword of
Muckle John," and without a word, he turned his back and began to
stride again up the street, snorting as he went.

"But, sir," cried Rob, at his heels, "what about me?"

"You," cried Muckle John in a huff, "what indeed?"

"I know nothing of swords," said Rob, anxious to appease him at all
costs.

Presently Muckle John stopped and looked, first upon the ground and
then at Rob, and so upon the ground again.

"Rob," said he at last, "had ye no better take your ways home?"

"Never!" cried he.

Without a word the other turned upon his heel, again, and so in a
dour silence they reached the centre of the town.

"Rob," said Muckle John, "you see that house there?  That is where
the Prince is staying, and there at the door he is, and with him Lord
George Murray, a braw soldier but no Irish, and so not above
suspicion."

On the door-step stood Prince Charlie talking in a vexed, irritated
manner to a very choleric-looking gentleman, who seemed in a bubble
of anger, which he could ill control.

"Come ye with me, Rob," said Muckle John, "and keep your eyes open,
and your mouth as tight as a gravestone."

As they approached, the Prince let his eyes rest on the massive
figure of Muckle John, then nodded absently like a man whose thoughts
are far away.  Lord George Murray, on the other hand, greeted him
with some cordiality, and turning again to the Prince, continued his
conversation.

"I can assure your Highness that no aid will come from France," he
said, "Fitzjames is captured, and that is not the last of it...."

The Prince gnawed his lip with bitter vexation.

"Your lordship was always most certain in disaster," he said
peevishly, "a long face carries a long tale."

"Unless we drive back Loudon we are like rats in a trap," went on
Murray ignoring the words.

"You forget Prestonpans, my lord."

The other shook his head fretfully.

"The men are tired and wearied of it all," he replied, "they want to
go home--they are not regular soldiers...."

"What would you say to talk like this?" said the Prince, turning of a
sudden upon Muckle John.

"Sir," he answered, "your troops are exhausted.  But in the mountains
you could resist the enemy until they recovered their strength."

"But there is no money--no sign of men nor arms.  What of
France--what of the English Jacobites?"

"What indeed?" said a low voice from the doorway.

Looking down upon them all stood a young man of about thirty--a thin,
slight, anxious-looking man dressed in black, carefully tended
clothes.  It was Mr. Secretary Murray, or, to give him his full name,
John Murray of Broughton.

"May the English Jacobites not escape their just punishment," he said
gravely, "should disaster await us," and he sighed and stared out
across the street.

"Shall I go north to assist Lord Cromartie?" asked Lord George
Murray, who hated Broughton.

The Prince frowned as though he would like to know the inner purpose
for such a plan.  Then, seeing none but that of reason and loyal
service, and yet doubting the latter very sincerely, he replied
almost gruffly:

"We will see what Sir Thomas Sheridan has to advise," whereat the
countenance of Lord George Murray grew dark with strangled rage.  For
a man who had risked his life and fortune and the lives of his people
to be dependent upon the whim of an Irish adventurer with nothing to
lose and everything to gain was enough to ruin any cause.  Already
the end of the '45 was in sight.

Muckle John bowed and drew Rob away.  A few minutes later Lord George
Murray passed them with a face like murder, bound for the North.

"Maybe ye see now," said Muckle John, "how the wind blows.  There
goes as good a soldier as can be, but ye'll find that whatever he
advises will be contradicted by any poor Irish creature or Frenchman
who may be passing.  The longer Cumberland sits snug in Aberdeen the
more time will there be for hectoring and desertion and the beginning
of the end.  Wae's me," he sighed, "I would give something to be upon
the quay of Dunkirk, for there's nothing here for the likes o' me but
a rope with a bit noose."

The business of procuring arms for Rob was next undertaken, and it
was a proud day indeed when he strapped a targe on his back, and a
claymore to his side.  He was attached to Lord George Murray's flying
column in pursuit of Lord Loudon, and so on the evening of that day
he bade farewell to Muckle John.

The march north was uneventful, and in due course, with only a
victorious expedition to his credit, Rob returned with the Duke of
Perth to Inverness and was dispatched into Atholl with Lord George
Murray's force.

During the succeeding weeks, the guerilla engagements of the
detachments in Atholl and Lochaber were completely successful, while
in the east the Prince kept at bay the dragoons of General Bland.  It
is not fully appreciated that the campaign around Inverness was no
less brilliant and successful than the other engagements of the
Jacobite rebellion.

But the war was nearing a crisis.  Cumberland having waited for the
spring, moved out of Aberdeen on April 8, his force consisting of six
battalions of foot and a regiment of dragoons.  At Strathbogie,
General Bland, with six battalions, Kingston's Horse and Cobham's
Dragoons, awaited his advance, while at Old Meldrum were three
battalions under Brigadier Mordaunt.  In this manner the entire army
advanced on Inverness.

The swiftness of their approach was wellnigh fatal to the Prince.
His troops were scattered on foraging and isolated expeditions, while
Lord Cromartie was as far away as Sutherlandshire.  Many clansmen had
returned home while a great number were wandering the country-side in
search of food.

On the morning of April 14 the drums began to beat and the pipes to
sound through the streets of Inverness, and with Charles Edward at
their head the Highlanders marched out of the town towards Culloden.
On the 15th the Prince brought his army to Drummossie-Moor, with a
view to engaging the enemy there.  But the ground was flat and heathy
and unsuitable for the method of attack most favoured by the
Highlanders.  Lord George Murray pleaded for more rugged and boggy
country to disconcert the English cavalry, but Charles, tired of long
waiting, was obdurate.  It was decided that a night attack was under
the circumstances the wisest plan of action.  To attack the enemy
crippled in artillery and cavalry work was on the surface a wise
course, and accordingly about eight o'clock on that evening, Rob
heard the order to prepare to march.  It was with heavy steps that
the Highlanders formed up, for only one biscuit per man had been
served out that day and they were utterly exhausted for want of food.
Moreover it was regarded as unwise to attack without the Mackenzies,
the Frasers, the Macphersons, the Macgregors and Glengarry's men, all
of whom were supposed to be hastening to Inverness.

However, the prospect of a night attack was sufficient to send them
along with good heart, and so the twelve-mile march began, and all
through the black night tramped the silent army, stumbling, falling,
straying from the road, until the dawn gleamed faintly in the east
and they realized that the plan had failed.  To meditate attack under
such circumstances was to court utter disaster.  There was nothing
for it but to return.  The surprise had failed.  The Prince, white
and tired, seemed on the point of tears.  All around him were haggard
faces and lagging feet.  Hardly a word was spoken.  It was in sober
truth the retreat of a beaten army....

The clansmen, now utterly exhausted, strayed back to Inverness in
search of food.  Many dropped in deep slumber upon the ground.  In
Culloden House the Prince sat in the deepest dejection.  Not long
after news reached him that the English forces were advancing.  Once
again the clans were gathered--messages were sent to Inverness to
hasten the stragglers--everything was done to put as brave a face on
it as possible.  Lord George Murray again advised taking up a
position more suited for the Highland charge, or retreating into the
hills.  But the Prince again rejected his counsel, and instead of
seven thousand fresh troops only about five thousand exhausted men
assembled on level country to meet Cumberland's veteran force.

To Rob, who looked on the Highland claymore as irresistible, the
approaching conflict was none too soon, to others it came as a relief
after weeks of waiting and hardship.

Of that ill-omened day everything is known, and little need be said:
it was the inevitable conclusion of a forlorn hope.

The English opened fire, and for long enough bullets rained and sang
through the sullen Highland ranks.  At last Lord George Murray
resolved on an advance, but before he could give the order the
Mackintoshes, with the heroism that had ever distinguished that clan,
charged recklessly, and at that all the regiments on the right moved
forward, and the action began in earnest.

An aide-de-camp was dispatched to hurry the advance of the left wing,
but he was shot on the way and this unhappy accident prevented the
Highland advance concentrating its full shock.  It has long been an
established belief that the battle was lost largely owing to the
defection of the Macdonalds, who refused to advance on a dispute of
precedence.  It is time that a story without historical foundation
should be for ever discredited.  The Macdonalds did not receive the
command to charge until it was too late, and they found themselves
faced by an impassable morass when they moved forward.  When the
battle was lost and the Prince in flight, they marched from the
stricken moor in good order.

The English soldiery meanwhile had awaited the attack with levelled
muskets and fixed bayonets, reserving their fire until the
Highlanders were almost upon them.  At close quarters they raked the
close ranks of the clansmen with deadly aim.

The carnage was terrible.  Whole ranks of the Highlanders were swept
away.  But it took more than that to stem that mad and dauntless
charge.  It broke through Barrel's and Monro's regiments, but farther
they could not go, for they received a storm of grapeshot sufficient
to decimate their numbers.  Had the whole Highland line delivered its
shock simultaneously the English army might have recoiled and taken
to flight.  But the failure of the extreme left to advance at all
lessened the frail chance of such a tactic proving decisive, and
within a few minutes the Jacobite cause was lost.

Rob, placed on the left wing, weary of waiting and sick at heart by
the sight of men falling all about him, unloosed his claymore, and
pulling his bonnet down upon his brows, prepared for his regiment to
charge.  At last they could stand the shattering fire no longer.
With a hoarse noise of shouting rising from Gaelic tongues like the
roar of a winter sea, they streamed forward in reckless bravery, and
foremost of them Rob, running over the heavy ground towards the storm
and thunder of the conflict.

Already, however, the main body of the Highlanders was wavering.  The
first wild charge had shattered their ranks.  The English cavalry
were advancing and some one shouted that the Prince was killed.
Panic began to do its work.  Soon after the left wing commenced to
march off the field.

All about Rob arose hoarse cries, groans, eddying smoke, and the roar
and clatter of arms.  Into the thick of the conflict he struggled
onwards.  He thrust and parried and thrust again with his claymore.
Well for him was it that his father had taught him the secrets of a
stiff wrist and the upper cut.  An English soldier rushed at him red
with battle madness, and shouting as he came.  Rob, receiving a blow
from an upraised musket on his targe, drove home his claymore and
heard the cry die out in the man's throat into a choking sob,
and--silence.

Then, before he could disengage his sword, a dragoon, spurring his
horse over the heaps of fallen men, slashed at his head with his
sabre, and, missing him, pulled up his beast and charged again.  For
Rob the situation was desperate, but seeing a little solitary group
of Highlanders near by, he took to his heels and reached them,
picking up an English musket as he ran.  He was barely in time; had
not a huge Cameron armed with a broadsword hewn down his opponent, it
would have fared badly indeed with him.  As it was, he clubbed his
musket, and standing back to back with the others, prepared to fall
as hardly as possible.

The tide of battle swept backwards and forwards; but all over the
fatal moor the Jacobite army was in retreat.  Gradually the little
group about him thinned, until only a bare dozen remained, and it was
in a breathing-space that Rob suddenly perceived Muckle John amongst
them.

His head was bound in a piece of tartan, and bleeding profusely; but
the smile was in his eyes, and his claymore rose and fell, and every
time a man floundered upon the ground.  Before him there lay a heap
of Englishmen as high as his elbow.

Presently the smoke of powder cleared a little, and over the moor
came a squadron of dragoons at a loose canter, killing all who stood
in their way, both wounded and unarmed.  Round the little circle of
faces Muckle John looked swiftly.

"Now," said he, "it is each for himself," and he whistled a sprig of
a tune as he began to swing his sword-arm.

With a hoarse yell the dragoons were on them.  Two fell to Muckle
John, there was a wild clash, and a man beside Rob dropped with a
groan.  And then came an oppressive weight of horses kicking,
plunging, rearing--and a blinding blow flung him unconscious beneath
their flying feet.


It was well indeed for Rob that death seemed to have snatched him
from the cruel hands of his enemies, and the pile of dead and dying
about him sheltered his body from the search parties of Hanoverians
now busy upon their work of butchery.

When at last he opened his eyes and stared about him silence had
fallen over the field--a silence infinitely tragic and menacing, pent
up with disaster and following retribution.

Very slowly facts began to stare him in the face.  Even he,
inexperienced in the manners of war and defeat as he was, realized
with a shudder that if he could not crawl away certain death awaited
him as it had met those silent figures all about him.  The blow on
his head throbbed horribly.  He felt sick and weak.  At last he made
an effort to turn upon his side, and moaned aloud.  Then suddenly he
clenched his lips, and dropped upon his face, for near at hand he
caught the tramp of footsteps, and heard the harsh voices of English
soldiery.

Nearer they came, until they halted beside him.

"None for Master Gibbet 'ere," said one, and a chuckle followed.

"You never know," said another, and began dragging the bodies this
way and that.

A muffled groan came from one of these unfortunates, and a moment
later, to Rob's horror, a pistol barked, and the same grim silence
fell again.

Then a hand gripped him by the arm, and turned him over.  To feign
death--that old, hazardous device--was Rob's solitary hope.  He lay
with closed eyes, holding his breath, in an agony of suspense.
Second followed second, and no sound reached him.  Stealthy footsteps
he heard, and a muffled laugh, but nothing to warn him of immediate
impending danger.  So awful became the mysterious nature of the delay
that he could hold out no longer.  Breathe he must, or he would burst
his lungs.

He drew in a long draught of air through his nostrils, and in a
flash--before he knew what had happened, he had sneezed.  A roar of
brutal laughter greeted the penetrating noise, and a voice cried out
beside him:

"Two to one on the snuff, Jerry; I've won the wager," and he was
dragged to his feet.

Rob opened his eyes now that the worst was come.  He would meet his
end as bravely as he could.  Four English soldiers were seated upon a
pile of dead Highlanders, and another held him by the arm.  He saw
that there was little chance of mercy written on their brutal faces.
Memories of Prestonpans and Falkirk were too sore for that.

"Well, my gamecock," said the man who held him, "so you are not so
dead after all.  What shall it be?  A little bullet from a pistol, or
a dig with one of your own claymores--more homelike that, eh?"

Rob kept silence.  He could not understand a word they said in their
queer, nasal twang.  Vainly his eyes searched the desolate,
wind-swept moor.  The clash of battle was long since past.  No hope
of friendly succour lay there.

"Haste ye!" cried one of the four men who sat together.  "There is
other work.  Pistol him and be done with it."

At that the fellow who held Rob stepped back a pace, and drawing his
pistol, raised it and fired deliberately at him.  Had Rob not ducked
it would have killed him as he stood.

"A miss!" cried the others, and with an exclamation the man snatched
a loaded pistol from one of his comrades, and prepared to finish the
business.

Rob stood very still this time.  He was too weak to run.  The sooner
it was all over the better.

The man was poising the pistol in his hand; he had shut one eye, and
was glaring at Rob with the other.  Already the trigger was moving,
when a stern voice shouted "Halt!" and an English officer, very
resplendently dressed, and with a white peruke, snatched the pistol
from the man's hand.  The other four staggered to their feet, and
stood at attention.

The officer, whose back was turned on Rob, appeared to stare for a
moment at the soldiers.  Then, throwing the pistol upon the ground,
he folded his arms and began to speak with a strong English accent,
as baffling to Rob as that of his captors.

"What does this mean?" he cried.  "Would you shoot a wounded boy?"

"Our orders were no quarter," growled the man who had so nearly
killed Rob.

"Take your orders from me," thundered the officer in a blaze of
anger, "or there will be more gibbets in Inverness than you had
reckoned upon, and with fine, red-coated gentry upon them belike," at
which Rob saw the fellows stir uneasily, and cast apprehensive
glances at one another.

Apparently satisfied by the fear he had put upon them, the officer
pointed to a horse wandering aimlessly about the moor, his reins
about his knees.

"Fetch that horse," said he; "my beast was shot from under me an hour
since."

Two of the men darted off, only too glad to win his favour, and all
the time the officer stood with his back to Rob--a great, square
figure, with a broad tear across the middle of his doublet and the
long hair showing beneath his peruke.  The soldiers caught the horse
without difficulty, and returned with it.  It was a dragoon charger,
a great grey, raking beast, strong and sound.

Taking the reins in his hands, the officer turned again to the men.

"Mayhap you cannot guess whom you so nearly shot," said he darkly.

They shook their heads in an awed silence.

"Then ask in Inverness," he replied, and vaulted into the saddle.

"Now," he went on, "hand that boy up here.  He's no prisoner for such
as you."

In a moment, two of the soldiers caught up Rob and placed him in
front of the saddle, so that he sat upon the horse's withers.

Then gathering up the reins they walked slowly away, leaving the
soldiers at the salute.

A hundred yards passed and still they maintained this idle pace.
Then suddenly the officer leaned forward.

"Haud tight," he whispered into Rob's ears in a voice strangely
familiar, "for we're no through with it yet," and with a plunge the
great horse sprang into a gallop.

"Muckle John!" cried Rob, nearly falling off altogether.

"Aye," said he, "just Muckle John and no sae happy at that."

Onward they rode at a headlong, tearing gallop, until the ill-fated
field of Culloden with its heaps of huddled dead lay far behind them;
and passing the water of Nairn, made for Aberarder and clattering
through, thundered onward to Faraline.




CHAPTER IV

FRENCH GOLD

A thin moon was drifting above the scattered clouds when Muckle John
and Rob reached the head of a wild and desolate glen in Stratherrick,
and here for the first time since their flight from Culloden they
drew rein and alighted.  So stiff and weary was Rob that his
companion was compelled to lift him down, and lay him in the heather.

The horse, utterly done, stood with his head hanging forlornly, and
the sweat dripping from his neck upon the heather.  Few horses would
have carried them both so gallantly.

Muckle John had long since discarded his English wig and coat.  He
stood in his shirt and with his hair fluttering in the night wind
regarding with sombre eyes the blinking lights of a house down the
valley, a square white house two stories high.  Twice during the
brief halt a man had crept out of the encircling darkness and
scrutinized them narrowly.  There was no sound beyond the wind
sighing amongst the corries, but each time Muckle John had seen the
heather quiver before something noiseless and stealthy that
disappeared as softly as it had come.  Once from far up the hill he
heard a long whistle like a curlew on the wing.

At last he turned his head and let his eyes rest on Rob, and then
again upon the grey horse with its drooping head.  With a faint shrug
of his shoulders he shook the boy.

"Rob," said he, "do you ken yon house?"

With a groan Rob struggled up.

"Gortuleg House," he replied, "I know it well."

Muckle John of a sudden turned his head and raised his hand for
silence.

From far away along the track they had come was a sharp click-clack
like the rattle of a loose stone on a horse's hoof.

"Ye hear, Rob," he whispered, "there'll be few abed to-night.  Come
away, boy, this is a daft-like place to be found in."

From up the hill came the mournful whistle once again.  It was
answered by another far down the glen.

"The place is hotching with Frasers," he muttered, lifting Rob upon
the horse, "and where the Frasers are a man must feel his way, saving
your presence, Rob."

"They are our friends," said Rob stoutly, "and my people."

"I'm no denying it--though maybe ye had safer speak for yersel', Rob,
but to-day will end many a friendship, and I'm no trusting Lochiel
himsel' until I'm clear of this business."

Nearer they drew to the lights of Gortuleg House, but the closer they
came the more cautious grew Muckle John, feeling his way with
immoderate care, and with a hand upon the horse's nostrils for fear
of a whinny.  To the rear of the house there stood a wall with a few
stunted fruit-trees in an orchard.  In the same anxious silence
Muckle John hitched the bridle to a branch and lifted Rob down.

"Bide here," he whispered, "until I come, and if any one speaks to
you say that you're waiting upon Lord Lovat."

"Lord Lovat?"

"Who else?"

"But is he here?"

"Man Rob, I've no time to teach you elements of common sense.  If ye
see a wheen corbies driving across the sky what do ye ken?"

"That there's carrion," said Rob to humour his temper.

"And if ye see muckle muir-fowl cowering among the heather?"

"A hawk."

"You're doing finely, Rob;" he paused and leaning nearer added in a
whisper, "I am no sure but that the hawk is nearer than ye think..."
and with that he was gone, leaving Rob beneath the shadow of the
broken masonry.

Barely five minutes had passed before the thud of horses' flying feet
came beating down the glen.  The moon riding high in the sky glinted
on steel and silver, and at the commotion the door of Gortuleg House
opened and the figure of an old bent man was silhouetted in the
doorway, leaning upon a stick.  He was a grotesque enough
spectacle--very ponderous and unwieldy, large-faced and ruddy and
with shifty, speeding eyes almost buried in a mass of flesh.  He was
dressed in a loose coat, rough baggy breeches and stockings, with
large flat buckled shoes, and as he peered and craned his head he
tapped in a fever of impatience upon the flagged stone at the doorway.

A single ray of light made a yellow bar upon the open space in front.

Nearer and nearer came the racket of galloping horses--the jingling
of bits and scabbards--the hoarse shout of a man's voice, and into
the lit space plunged a powerful roan horse all dirty grey with foam
and spent mud.  Upon its back there sat a young man rocking with
fatigue and with his head uncovered and his coat opened to the night
wind.  The old man standing in the doorway shuffled forward a step
and laid a hand upon his bridle-reins.

"Who are ye?" he asked in a shrill querulous voice, "and what news do
you bring?"

For a long time there was no reply, and in the silence the candle in
the old man's hand fluttered desperately and went out.

"I am the Prince," said the man upon the horse in a dull voice as
though he were half dreaming, "I am the Prince and..." his voice
trailed into silence.

[Illustration: "I AM THE PRINCE," SAID THE MAN UPON THE HORSE.]

Round him in a half-circle the companions of that wild flight were
gathered--their faces looking very dim and white like the faces of
ghosts.  For an instant the old man seemed to shrink into himself.
His great head drooped,--the hand that gripped the bridle fell with a
low thud against his side.  But only for an instant.  There was
within that disease-racked body an energy that defied the penalties
of age.

"Dhia gleidh sinn," he cried harshly, "are you tongueless all of you?
Come--come in--would you sit glooming there all night?  Your
Highness," he said, breaking off and looking up again, "this is a wae
meeting and like to be our last...."

"You are Lord Lovat," said the Prince with more life in his voice.

"It is a name," the old man replied, with a sudden twisted grin,
"that I would I could disown."

A few gillies had gathered about the horsemen, and when they had
dismounted their tired beasts were led away to an outhouse, and the
whole party followed Lord Lovat within.

Inside the room where they made their way a great fire was burning.
A table stood in the centre, upon which was a bottle of claret and
some glasses.  He had waited news for hours back.

In the firelight Lord Lovat regarded his visitors with sour
displeasure.  Now that the news of Culloden had come, and the first
biting terror over, he resumed his habitual demeanour of inscrutable
cynicism.  He congratulated the Prince on arriving so soon, and
poured out his glass of wine--he asked the names of the various
gentlemen with him and expressed polite ignorance when he was
informed, only remarking that he had always admired Irishmen because
they took so much interest in other people's affairs.  And all the
time he was cursing his utter folly for having supported the Jacobite
cause and plotting, plotting, plotting in his inmost mind what was
the safest course to take.

Only once did his self-possession desert him, and that was when the
Prince said to Sir Thomas Sheridan that they must make for the Isles.

"Make for the Isles," he cried, glaring at them like an aged
wolf-hound, "what sort of talk is that?  Will you desert us all and
not make a stand in the hills?  What is one defeat?  You must make
terms, sir, or you'll have more to answer for than ever your father
had."

"It is no good," replied the Prince dejectedly.

"Oh, why," cried Lovat, trembling with fury and vexation, "did ye
come and ruin us at all?"

At that they tried to soothe him, telling him that he had taken no
part--that he was an old man--that he could hide for a season.  To
all of which Lovat shook his great head.  He never deceived himself.

"More than that," went on the Irishman, Sheridan, pacing up and down
before the open window, "all is not lost.  The clans will assemble
again, and French gold is even now on its way.  Gold," he added,
"will unite us again as quick as honour."

He smiled, little guessing how far he erred in that while Lovat
listened absently.

"French gold," he repeated, "and how can they land gold now?"

"They make for Lochnanuagh," replied Sheridan, "and...." but the
Prince broke in:

"Come, gentlemen," he cried, "let us to horse.  We must reach
Invergarry before dawn.  There is no sleep for us yet awhile..." and
he raised his harassed eyes to the cold sky.  "My lord," he said, a
moment later, taking Lovat by the hand, "do not give way to
despair--we are not beaten yet."

But the melancholy tone in which he sought to cheer the old man went
like a chill to their hearts, and brought the old satirical grin to
Lovat's mouth.

"Farewell," replied the old man with all the natural dignity that
neither age nor dishonour could rob him, "I doubt we shall never meet
again."

At that they all rose, and after shaking him by the hand passed down
the stairs.  He accompanied them to the door and stood with no
further word while they mounted their beasts.  The gillies letting
the reins, fell back into the night leaving him alone.  He took off
his hat, but made no other sign.

Of a sudden in the cold night there rang a wild tumult of horses'
hoofs and they were gone as they had come.

For long Lord Lovat stood in the doorway listening, with his eyes
upon the black way they had taken, and then shivering violently he
turned and stumbled upstairs.

Out in the darkness Muckle John crept from the shadows.  He had heard
all or nearly all.  He looked all around him and then stared at the
upper window of Gortuleg.  He could see the vast shadow of Lovat
seated by the table waiting his fate.  For a few minutes he stood
pondering the situation, then on tiptoe he crossed the track and
opened the door.  Closing it gently, he made his way up the narrow
stairs.  The door to the room where Lovat sat was open.  He halted in
the passage and looked in.

On a chair before the empty fire-grate sat the old man, his eyes
fixed upon the floor, his legs crossed his fingers intertwined.  His
lips were moving ceaselessly, and once he frowned like a man frowns
to himself who is uncertain just what course to take.

At last he rose and made his way across the room and to a strong box
heavily clasped.  This he unlocked and opened, extracting a heap of
documents and letters and laying them upon the table.  Then setting
fire to the peats, he began to turn over the stuff, throwing some
into the flames and putting some back again into the box.

"A braw night to you," said Muckle John, standing full in the
doorway.  The paper the old man held between his fingers fluttered
gently upon the floor.  Over his face there travelled a grey tinge as
though he had grown of a sudden very old or ill.  But he never moved
nor did he say anything.

Entering the room, Muckle John closed the door, and walking towards
the fire set about warming his hands in the coolest manner
imaginable.  Then taking off his great coat he laid it over the
window.

"On such a night," he said, "it is better to do things quickly, my
lord, and privately."

The old man answered nothing.  He seemed struck dumb with fear, or
rage, or some kindred emotion.

"I take it from your little preparations that you know how things
stand."

"I was looking through some old rubbish," said Lovat more at his ease.

"I know what sort of rubbish," replied Muckle John, extracting a
letter before the old man could check his hand, "how would this
sound, eh?  It's no what we might call cordial to Geordie."

"I am an old sick man," said Lovat, with a suspicion of whining,
"scarce able to read or write.  My memory is near gone and my
faculties all amiss.  What do you want with me?  It is late and I
have much to do."

"Perhaps your lordship will remember Castleleathers, who was once
your good friend."

"What of him?"

"He did me a service abroad.  Yesterday I was with him in Inverness.
He told me much about you, my lord--and your promises."

Lovat shrugged his shoulders.

"It is easy to listen to one side of a matter," he replied tartly.
"Castleleathers is a fool--I have never suffered fools gladly."

"Even you make mistakes sometimes, my lord."

The fear of capture took Lovat by the throat.

"Aye," he gulped, "but this is no time to quarrel.  Let bygones be
bygones.  I did ye a wrong long since, I'll allow, but surely ye can
forgive and forget?"

"No," said Muckle John, "I never forgive nor forget."

"Then what is it you want--is it my life--there is little enough of
that to take--or is it money--I have a few guineas?"

"It is none of these.  If I wanted your life I would set the red
coats on you.  But they will need no guidance of mine.  I want to
know where the gold is to be landed that is coming from France."

"Oho," cried Lovat, "so that's how the wind blows, is it?" and he
remained deep in thought for a while.

"Will you do something if I tell ye?" he asked cunningly.

"Maybe and maybe no."

Lovat moistened his dry lips.

"There are sore times coming," he said in his husky voice, and
speaking in Gaelic for the first time, "and I am not what I was.
There may be folk who will swear black is black instead of white--you
will be taking my meaning?  Were I to fall into the hands of the
Government it might go badly with me.  But there are ways...."

"And they?"

"I have not taken arms, though my son has.  They would never harm him
being a mere boy, but they might forgive his old father should he
hand him over.  It must happen one way or the other.  But I cannot
lay hands on him.  What would you say to that?  It is for the boy's
good--"

"Impossible--you are pleased to insult me."

"Then what will you do should I tell you?"

"I will not dispatch these letters to the Duke of Newcastle."

A sickly grey colour crept into Lovat's cheeks.

"You would--you would?" he gasped.  "You would play into English
hands, you would sell me?"

"There was an occasion," said Muckle John, coolly, "when you nearly
did the same to me."

"Long ago--long ago."

"In the year 1728 to be exact."

Lovat's eyes flickered over the strong box and back again.

"How did ye know there was treasure?" he said, to make time.

"You forgot to shut your window."

"You played eavesdropper?"

Muckle John sighed.

"The hour is late," he replied, meaningly.

"I am in your hands," said Lovat.

"Then tell me where the gold is to be landed.  I could not catch the
name of the place."

The old man leant forward suddenly.

"It is on the coast of Knoidart," he replied.

"You swear it?"

"Such were the words that Sheridan said."

"It sounded unlike Knoidart, but I could not hear."

"It was Knoidart."

For long Muckle John tried to read truth or lies in his face.  But
the expression of Lovat was guileless.

"If you have lied," said Muckle John at last, "I will hound you down."

Lovat gently drew the palms of his hands together.

"Why should I lie?" he said.

"Then good-bye, my lord, and look to your papers, for to-morrow will
bring dragoons and..."

"Enough," broke in Lovat, "I am not afraid."

He sat perfectly still until Muckle John had gone down the stairs,
then with a grim smile he set about sorting his papers.

"Knoidart," he chuckled, "it's little gold would remain in Knoidart."

Out in the night Muckle John stood deep in thought, then climbing
softly over the wall he reached Rob and the great grey horse.

"I must leave you for a while, Rob," he whispered, "but I'll return,
never fear, and keep watch for the bit tune--ye mind the way it
goes--" and he whistled a bar.  "Keep on the top of the hills,
laddie, but mind the skyline, and never stir by day.  It's advice
easily given but a weary business to follow," and putting his foot in
the stirrup he mounted and walked softly down the glen.

A great loneliness stole over Rob, left as he was in a country he
hardly knew, and with a throbbing wound, and a keen hunger on him.
Stealing round to the house he made his way to the hall, and hearing
no sound of human souls anywhere he entered the kitchen and happened
upon a plate of cold porridge.  This he devoured, and re-entering the
hall he lay down before the fire and fell asleep.

Upstairs Lovat crouched before the fire.  Hour after hour passed and
still he spelt out with his tired weak eyes the contents of one sheet
upon another.  Once he nodded and a letter passed unread--a letter
that was to weigh in the scales against him later.  For an hour he
slept altogether.  But as the dawn was creeping back over that
stricken country, the day following Culloden found him still bending
with a haggard countenance over his correspondence, every letter of
which might bring him to the scaffold.


At dawn on the same morning that saw the Prince speeding westward and
Muckle John upon the road, before the moon had sunk behind the hills,
Rob Fraser stole out of the hall and made his way into the open air.
Already rumours were drifting through the village that the English
were on the march towards Gortuleg, and all who were suspected of
having taken arms for the Prince would be summarily dealt with, and
their houses given to the flames.

Round the premises of Gortuleg dwelt the same melancholy silence as
on the night before.  Every living thing seemed to have fled.  The
very kennels were empty.  Only one shaggy Highland pony whinnied in
the desolate stable, hungry and alone.

A grey mist was driving down the glen, and a thin drizzle of rain had
set in with the coming day.

As Rob peered up at the windows wondering what had befallen, he
caught for an instant a pair of eyes fixed upon him, and heard a
noise of shuffling feet.  Coming from that deserted place it sounded
so dreary that he was near taking to his heels.  Before he could
move, however, the huge bulk of Lord Lovat loomed into the shadowy
doorway.  Leaning heavily upon his stick with hunched shoulders, and
a face unshaved and the grey colour of chalk, he stood with muttering
lips.  Then shuffling forward a step he stared blankly at Rob like a
man whose thoughts are far away on another errand.

"What o'clock is it?" he rasped at last; and pulling off his wig,
patted it idly, and rammed it again upon his head.

"Six o'clock, your lordship," said Rob, in a great awe of him.

"Six o'clock!" He frowned suddenly, looking all around him with
pursed lips.  "Where are my servants?" he cried.  And when no answer
came he quoted a scrap of Latin, and chuckled as though the context
tickled him.

"Well, well," said he at last, "and who are you, boy?"

"Rob Fraser, sir."

"Thank ye," he snarled, speaking in broad Scots; "but it's a name as
common as muir-fowl hereabouts.  Why are ye no with the Master, that
unscrupulous rebel, my son?  Mind how I spoke of him, Rob, should
they ever dare to take me."

"I heard ye, my lord."

"Aye, and speak up for an old man, Rob, whose havers may be
misinterpreted, ye ken.  What is it ye will answer, Rob?"

"That you called your son, the Master, an unscrupulous rebel," he
replied.

Lovat nodded his great head approvingly.

"Bonny it sounds.  That'll make the House o' Peers sit up.  We'll
carry it with silver hairs and injured innocence, Rob--an auld man,
my lords, near doited with years and sorrow."

He paused, and the look of fear twisted his features once again.

"It would look better to bide here," said he, in a mutter to himself,
and so, with a pinch of snuff, he turned towards the door again.  But
a moment later he was back, and this time his limbs fairly shook with
fear.

"No, no!" he gasped, one gout swollen hand upon his breast.  "I canna
wait here like an auld maimed dog.  There are places I can bide until
arrangements can be made.  Quick, boy--saddle a horse and let us go."

"The horses are all gone, my lord," said Rob.

"All gone?  So that is how they treat me.  Then we must walk until we
find one.  Surely my people will help their chief."

"There is a pony, your lordship," cried Rob, and going to the stable
he led out the powerful little beast.

Shuffling back to the house, Lovat crept up the creaking stairway and
returned some minutes later with his strong box.

"Fasten it behind the saddle, Rob," he said, "or better still can I
trust ye to carry it?"

He stood for a moment glooming at the ground and then begun to hunt
amongst his pockets for a piece of paper which, when he had found it,
he read most carefully and tittered in a strange falsetto manner to
himself.

Then taking a silver whistle from his waistcoat he blew it three
times and took to breathing upon his frozen fingers.

From the heather a hundred yards up the glen two men had risen at the
first note, and came running towards them--long-haired, ragged
gillies, Fraser by their tartan.  They stood a little way from Lovat,
watching him like dogs ready for the trail.  The frost of their night
watch stood upon their bonnets and their beards were stiff and
glistening.  Waving Rob aside Lovat began to speak to them in a low
tone, but before he had said more than a dozen words his voice rose
to a scream through the influence of some private passion, and he
menaced them in Gaelic so that they quailed before his clenched fist.
But as suddenly his voice dropped and he caressed them, patting their
cheeks and then dismissing them, stood panting beside Rob--all the
fire gone--once more just an old sick man.

Very slowly he clambered upon the pony, and so they started and began
to pass the cluster of huts near Gortuleg.  The frightened people
trooped out of their doors to see their chief go by, and a dozen
Frasers armed with muskets and swords gathered about him and trudged
in silence towards the west.

At the corner of the brae Lovat turned and looked back on Gortuleg.
Beneath his bullying, tyrannical, shifty character there was a kind
of bedrock of that highly coloured sentiment that is akin to
melodrama.  He played to the gallery with infinite zest and genuine
enjoyment.  It was a nice pose to combat the diminishing power of the
chieftainship--where force was a dangerous weapon, sentiment was
often a two-edged sword.

"Farewell," he said, in his deep voice and with honest tears in his
eyes, "for maybe I shall never see you again."

It did not matter that the house was not his, nor an imposing
habitation at the best of times.  All that mattered was that he was
at the turn of the brae, going downward--an exiled chief.  Fully
conscious that the setting was saga-like the clansmen set up a
piteous lamentation, and bowing his great head Lovat motioned them
on, and the journey continued.  And in this fashion after many weary
hours they reached Loch Muilzie in Glenstrathfarar and for the time
being considered themselves in safety.


Far away, dimly discernible in that wilderness of heather, two men
were running like wolves on the trail--two men with dirks by their
sides, and death in their hearts--running tirelessly.  On the
outskirts of the Fraser country they passed another man who was
watching the pass and without a word he joined them--three men
running in single file, bending double in open places--heading for
Knoidart.

Long after, when the sun was falling, Muckle John pulled in his horse
for the third time within an hour and listened intently.  From the
drenched hillside a curlew was crying amongst the shadows, and from
up the hill came the clamour of a muir-fowl.

But no whisper of the danger that lurked unseen amongst the
silences--awaiting the night.

And then with troubled eyes he continued his way, taking cover where
he could, seeking a place of refuge.




CHAPTER V

LOCH ARKAIG

Day followed day with no sign of the soldiers, and as time passed,
Rob wished most fervently that Muckle John had not disappeared so
abruptly, leaving him in an unknown country with a helpless old man.

One morning there was a movement in Lovat's hut and the old chief
stood peering out of the doorway looking very savage and uncouth.  He
had forgotten to place his wig on his head and the scattered tags of
grey hair were caught by every gust of wind.

"Rob," he said at last, shivering with the cold, "take a day in the
hills and learn where the English are and whether a French frigate is
off the coast."

Only too glad to fall in with such a suggestion Rob prepared to set
off at once.  Suddenly Lord Lovat called to him.

"Rob," he said, "where did you come from that night?"

"I came from Culloden."

"Culloden--and did you meet anyone on the road?"

"Only Muckle John."

The Fraser's cold eyes swooped down on him like a hawk dropping from
the clouds.

"Muckle John," he repeated, "I seem to know the name--so you came
with him did ye?  And where were you, Rob, when the horsemen arrived?
Was Muckle John with you then?"

"No, he had left me."

"Of course--of course--and then he came back and told you he was
going away on important business, Rob."

"He said he would return."

At that Lovat left him, laughing as though something mightily funny
had been said.  But at the door he turned, still convulsed with his
humour, and wagging a finger at him remarked:

"Mind my words, laddie, the race is not always to the swift nor the
battle to the strong."

But Rob only looked at him in wonder, seeing nothing but an old sick
man overtaken by dotage.

Then setting out upon the heather he made for the head of Loch Arkaig.

[Illustration: HE PEERED THROUGH THE HEATHER UPON THE BEACH.]

Throughout the day he saw no glimpse of red-coats, and when evening
was falling he stepped boldly down upon the shore of the loch, and
thence onward to Lochnanuagh, where, to his excitement, the white
sails of a frigate were bellied out with the breeze.  Hastily
concealing himself he peered through the heather upon the beach where
a great number of people, principally Camerons and Macdonalds, were
collected, and with them a squarely built, consequential little man
very plainly dressed, who seemed greatly agitated about the numbers
on the shore and anxious to disperse the crowd at all costs.  But the
more he cajoled and threatened the more closely they thronged the
beach, and in the meanwhile the frigate had run down her anchor and
lowered a boat.  In it Rob could distinguish four men and some cargo,
which had been slung down from the deck.  On the shore there was a
sudden silence almost startling after the clash of voices before.
The creak of the rowlocks came nearer, and though far up the hill--so
still was the day--Rob could catch the French manner of their speech,
and once he heard the small man upon the beach cough and blow his
nose.

But immediately the keel of the boat grated upon the shingle, the
greatest animation was displayed.  The sailors threw the cargo (which
comprised some half-dozen little casks) upon the sand, and under the
instructions of the little man they were carried into a secluded
place and a rope slipped round them, whereupon he set about paying
the sailors.

At that moment, however, there was a sullen boom like the noise of a
gun far out at sea, and without a second's delay the boat shot away
to the frigate, the anchor was raised, and running up her canvas she
wheeled like a sea-bird and catching the breeze sped towards open
water.  From the noise of firing out at sea it was apparent that an
action was in progress between an English man-of-war and the French
ships.

The excitement upon the beach now boiled to fever heat.  The hills
nearest the bay were soon black with spectators, and in the midst of
this new sensation the casks upon the beach were forgotten by all
except the little man.

Indeed, had he not passed so close leading a Shetland pony very
carefully and yet urging it to its fullest speed, Rob would never
have remembered the landing of that mysterious cargo and consequently
never have been mixed up in the tragedy of gold.  But to Rob there
was something enormously mystifying about the character of this
solitary traveller, with his anxious manner, and the rattling casks
ranged high upon the pony's flanks.  It was like an old wife's tale
of the fairies and their secret kegs of heather ale.

Partly because they were going the same road--partly because his
curiosity was awake--he followed him through the heather, keeping a
sharp eye meanwhile, for again and again the man upon the track would
swing suddenly about and send his gaze ranging the hill-side for fear
of being followed by the people on the shore.  But always he did so
with the utmost haste, urging the pony onwards after each halt, as
though he feared the approach of night, or something that Rob knew
nothing about.

And so they reached Loch Arkaig, and on the shore of the loch the man
seemed to hesitate and take thought, and then hitching the pony to a
tree he conveyed the casks to the sand beside the edge of the
heather, and flinging off his coat, drew a spade from a hidden place
and commenced to dig.

Twilight had come, and so shadowy had the shore grown that Rob crept
nearer, wriggling through the tufts of heather and rock as
noiselessly as an Indian.

Suddenly, however, he saw the head and shoulders of some one else
silhouetted against the grey surface before him, a man who crouched
and ducked his head as the digging ceased or recommenced upon the
beach with the same care that he himself was practising.  It was
evident to Rob that there was more in all of this than he had
imagined.

At last, apparently satisfied, the watcher began to retreat towards
him, running on all fours up the hill-side.  So rapidly did he come,
indeed, that Rob had no time to roll out of the way, and with a swift
bound the newcomer flung his full weight upon him, uttering no sound
whatever, and together they rolled over and over in each other's arms.

One moment Rob was uppermost, then the other, who seemed all arms and
legs and sharp clawing fingers.  Twice Rob felt his throat gripped
and two thumbs upon his windpipe, and each time he managed to jerk
his head away.  Then with a swift dive of his right arm he reached
the knife in his stocking, and pulling it out he plunged it into his
assailant's shoulder.  It was a small blade, ill-fitted for dangerous
work such as this; but a thin scream told him that he had penetrated
the man's thick great-coat.  Then perceiving his opponent jerk his
head about with the pain, Rob clutched a heavy stone and driving it
against his temple sent him senseless upon the ground.

It was a narrow escape, but fortune had apparently come to his aid in
the nick of time.  With a gasp of relief he sprang to his feet, when
out of the darkness a voice said: "Stand, or I fire!" and the cold
barrel of a pistol was rammed against his cheek.

He had forgotten the man upon the shore.

"I am unarmed," gasped Rob; "and it is the man upon the ground whom
you should guard against, not me."

At that the pistol was lowered, and seating himself the newcomer laid
it upon his knee and ordered him to relate his account of the fight,
to which he listened with the closest interest.  Then rising he bound
the unconscious man's arms and legs with some rope which lay upon the
beach, and thrust a rough gag into his mouth.

"And now, my lad," said he, "tell me what brings you here."

With some hesitation Rob related his experiences of the last two
days, and when he had finished his companion clapped him upon the
back.

"Bravely done," he said; "and let me tell you that Archibald Cameron
is proud to meet ye."  So saying he wrung him warmly by the hand and
sprang to his feet.

He was that Dr. Archibald Cameron, brother to Lochiel, who was to
suffer death at the hands of the Government in the year '53, a very
gallant gentleman and the last to fall in the Stuart cause.

The moon was climbing into the sky as they stepped towards their
prisoner; but Cameron first took Rob aside and whispered in his ear:

"What I buried," said he, speaking in the Lowland tongue, "would set
the Highlands in a blaze.  It is a merciful Providence you turned up
as you did.  For now we can hide it all the easier in another place,
or maybe two places.  But give me your oath on the naked dirk that no
word of it will ever pass your lips except to the Prince."

"The Prince?" echoed Rob, who had followed him with difficulty.

"And who else?  Did ye no jump to what the bonny casks meant?  French
gold, boy--enough to buy every claymore in the Highlands and Argyll
as well.  Now d'ye see?  Come, Rob."

With that, Cameron approached the man upon the ground and motioned
Rob to take his legs while he grasped him by the arms.  So they made
for a hollow place, and as they laid him down he groaned and opened
his eyes, and at that moment the moon, clearing the tops of the
trees, played its pale shafts upon the ghastly face of Ephraim
Macaulay, late schoolmaster in Inverness.




CHAPTER VI

THE WATCHERS BY NIGHT

Darkness overtook Muckle John to the south of Loch Garry in the
Macdonald country.  He had travelled without halt all day, keeping to
the less frequented roads, and seeing on every side traces of the
panic that followed Culloden.  In every village was the same terror
and the same frantic haste--some burying claymores with desperate
hands so that they remained only half covered--others taking to the
hills with their wives and little ones.  Once a party of two hundred
or more passed him on the road making for the south-west.  They wore
the look of men utterly dispirited, limping in broken ranks for all
the blithe playing of a piper at their head.

Then plunging on through the heather he put mile after mile between
him and Fort Augustus.

It was about three on the same afternoon that he pulled in his horse
very sharply and swinging about gazed back.  He was not sure that he
had heard anything.  It was more a premonition than anything else,
but a northerner pays close heed to such things.

Everything was very lifeless and dreary on the road he had come.
There was no sign of man or beast.  With a grim look in his eyes
Muckle John continued his journey.

But about an hour later he swerved behind a ledge of rock and
cantered swiftly up the hill, keeping behind a huddle of crag for
some hundred yards.  Then turning as rapidly he watched the back
trail.  Several minutes passed and there was no sign of living thing.
Presently, however, something moved ever so slightly just where the
last rock towered out of the heather.  A man's head rose and fell
again.

With a faint smile Muckle John continued his way.  His horse was very
tired--twice it had nearly fallen through pure weariness.  That it
could carry him little further he realized at once.  He did not know
how many pursuers were on his track, but he put them down as Highland
caterans ready to cut a throat for a purse.  In that case they would
wait till he slept, and rush upon him.  It was, therefore, a matter
of life or death for him to find a place of refuge before the sun
fell.

The evening was closing in and he was so tired that he nodded as he
rode.  Nowhere in that rolling desolate country could he see a house
or any trace of clachan or croft.  And behind him waiting for
darkness were men as crafty and cruel as Indians and just as patient.
If not to-night then to-morrow, and he might wander over--miles of
heather for days on end.

Meanwhile the brain of Muckle John was working.  The future lay open
to him like a man reading a map.  He must throw them off the scent or
perish.  If not to-night--to-morrow.  He would never come to grips
with them--that he knew too well.  It would be in his heavy sleep in
the blackness of a Highland night.  It must not be thought Muckle
John was much concerned at the prospect.  Those were days when life
was not held dearly, and when a soldier of fortune might be hard put
to it several times in a week.  It was more the indignity of the
business that irritated him.  He was not accustomed to being stalked
like a young stag.  Most men gave Muckle John a wide berth.

Even as he brooded on the matter the grey horse tripped and fell.  No
power on earth could have kept it on its feet.  It was utterly done.
With a groan it collapsed upon its knees and rolled over on its side.
Muckle John had slipped off as it staggered and now stood above it
studying the next move.  He was above all anxious to get a glimpse of
his pursuers.  Loosening his sword and taking a pistol from his
great-coat pocket, he lay alongside the horse as though his leg were
securely fastened beneath it in its fall.  It was an old trick, but
this was a country of few horses and worth a trial.  He knew that
they would close in on him if they saw him apparently crippled and at
their mercy.  Slowly the minutes passed and there was no sound, while
a mist rose from the moist bed of the valley and hung in wreaths
between the hills.  Muckle John lay perfectly still, his pistol
hidden beneath the tail of his coat, one leg stretched over the
horse's flank, the other doubled up beneath him.

Near at hand a stone clinked at the burnside.  It might have been a
hill fox creeping away, but Muckle John knew that a fox does not do
such things.  He felt the eyes of some one upon him--but he could see
nothing, and all the time the darkness was falling swiftly and his
nerves were strained to the uttermost, waiting as he was upon his
side for the rush of perhaps a dozen men.

Up the hill he heard an owl call and at that he smiled, for he
knew--who better--that it was not the night for owls to cry Glengarry
way, and that there is a world of difference between the call of a
man and the call of an owl except to those who have never made it
their business to note such things.

It was all falling out as he had expected, and he waited quite coolly
for what was to come, foreseeing nothing of what really happened.
Indeed it all came about so swiftly and so silently that few save
Muckle John would have lived to learn another lesson in methods of
attack.

Now there was an eminence immediately above him, such a natural
frontage of rock as one sees on many a hill-side--places naturally
avoided by the wild things unless they travel up wind or come upon
them from above.  Muckle John was looking upward when it happened.
He was quite aware of the danger he ran, but he was waiting for a
man's head to show itself against the sky-line just over the ledge.
Suddenly, without warning but with only a muffled scraping like small
pebbles scattered wildly, the sky was blotted out altogether, and at
that Muckle John leaped like a hare and leaped just a thousandth
fraction too late.  The boulder, for that was of course what had been
launched to crush him, killed the dying horse on the instant.  But it
also smashed the pistol of Muckle John and crumpled his sword like a
thin strip of tin, imprisoning the tail of his great-coat in the
ruin.  It was neck or nothing now, and wrenching himself free he gave
one glance at his arms and flinging them down set off through the
trees that fringed the hill-side--running for his life.  Knowing that
his pursuers were probably tired men he set the pace in the hope of
flinging them off, keeping the upper part of the hill, seldom
stumbling for all his riding-boots and the darkness, and sometimes
pausing for a breath of time to hear whether he had cast them off.
But always at the same distance behind him he caught the dull padding
of feet like wolves on the trail--tireless as deer.  He made use of
every feint he knew.  He doubled on his tracks, he took refuge in
places beneath crags.  But always silently, patiently, utterly
undaunted they came on.  He could not see them but he heard them
moving ever nearer, biding their time.  There might be six or there
might be twenty--he could not tell.

A desperate plan occurred to him to carry the war into the enemy's
country--to pick off single men and throttle them noiselessly in the
heather.  But there was danger in that.  He was unarmed now, and some
one might give the alarm and they would overcome him in the struggle.
Stumbling on he looked about him for a river or a loch in which he
could swim to safety, or some cleft in a rock where he could hope to
meet his assailants single-handed.

But there was nothing in all that dreary maze of darkness, and with
anger and despair in his heart he settled down to a long tireless
trot, waiting to outwit them if he could.

It was about two hours later that the moon filtered thin shafts of
grey light through the scurrying clouds, and in a twinkling the
landscape showed dimly and Muckle John found himself at a narrow pass
running between two hills with a precipice of rock reaching up
hundreds of feet on either side.  Then the moon disappeared and he
set off at a great pace up the rocky track, knowing that here, if at
all, there lay a way to safety.  On each side was the smooth surface
of rock.  There was no place to take refuge, but who could tell what
use might be made of such a place?  He must have covered half a mile
at a quick pace--all the quicker because he knew that those upon his
heels, running barefoot, would be handicapped by the loose stones and
jagged edges of rock--when he came out upon the open moorland again
and on the breath of the wind he caught the smell of cattle.  And at
once he saw a way.

Again the moon trailed out upon the misty sky and with eager eyes
Muckle John searched the vapour.  A clump of shaggy dripping coats
huddled in a sheltered place to his right, that was all, but it
satisfied Muckle John, for very quickly, knowing that there was not a
moment to lose, he drew near to them and running amongst them, with a
great shout brought them lumbering and snorting wildly to their feet.
A vast Highland bull bellowed in the driving mist, but seeing nothing
stamped his feet and shook his horns uncertainly.  Then unsheathing a
small knife, Muckle John drove the blade into a heifer beside him and
sent it at a gallop towards the pass.  Running hither and thither,
but always avoiding the bull, he kept them moving, moving, until the
head of the narrow way was reached, and at that he drew back and
halted for the moon.

It came again in all serenity, streaming on to the desolate place
with a thin forlorn kind of light, making the shadow of Muckle John
look very large and the clump of cattle, some fifty of them and their
perplexed and irritated leader, look like the cattle of a dream.

The time was ripe.  With a strange noise in his throat like the roar
of a stag Muckle John dropped upon his hands and made towards them on
all fours--a weird enough spectacle on a lonely moor and very
unnerving under a hazed moon.  It was the last straw to the agitated
beasts packed at the head of the pass.  For a moment the bull stood
his ground, but his heart failed him, being a bull barely three years
old, and losing his head he set the panic ablaze.  It was
helter-skelter down the gorge and Muckle John at the back of them
with his naked knife in their flanks.  Again and again his wild cry
rose and fell, faster and faster they thundered on until nothing
could have stopped them--least of all three Frasers caught just
midway like rats in a trap.  What happened can never be known in its
grim detail.  But the herd passed on, and the beat of their feet died
down and was swallowed up in the silent night.

And after them Muckle John, scanning the ground behind them, treading
leisurely down the moonlit pass.  Suddenly he paused and shivered at
what he saw.  Then walking on he paused again, and once more about
fifty yards away he bent his head, and this time he took up a flutter
of blood-stained tartan and peered at it very closely.

Presently he grinned like a dog.

"Fraser," he said, "what brings Frasers so far from Lovat at such a
time--except to carry a message at the end of a dirk?  What will
Lovat say when he waits for news of the killing of Muckle John and he
waits in vain?"

He stared at the strip of tartan for a long time, and then setting it
on a ledge of rock he cut it into three equal parts.

"I doubt," he said grimly, "but there'll be a coronach playing when
the last of you comes home."

Then making his way to the head of the pass he lay down underneath
the shadow of a rock and settled himself to sleep.




CHAPTER VII

BURIED TREASURE

A faint cry of dismay fell from Rob's lips as he met the evil glare
in the schoolmaster's eyes.  Cameron, too, seemed more than a little
shaken at the encounter, though he said nothing, but appeared plunged
in thought about the future.

In the hollow place where they stood, it was impossible for their
prisoner to see anything save the open sky, and a thousand twinkling
stars.

After a moment Cameron stepped gingerly beside him, and pulled at his
bonds.  Then, tearing a strip of cloth from off Macaulay's shirt, he
bound it round his eyes as though to hide their gleaming malice from
sight.

"Come, Rob," he said, in a whisper, "there's work for you and me this
night.  When we have ended we will set him free," and he led the way
back to the shore.

It was very still and lonesome there with only the soft wash of the
loch and the sighing of the wind amongst the trees, and Rob wished
the matter well over, and himself back in the comparative security of
Lovat's company.

"While I dig them up you roll them along the right bank," whispered
Cameron, warning him to keep in the depths of the heather, "and lay
them down in the shadow of the burn that joins the loch yonder.
Should you hear a sound come back and warn me.  Och!" he concluded,
stepping into the moonlight, "but these are strange times."  Then
bending his back he sent the spade deep into the sand.

"It's fortunate for you that I caught him watching," whispered Rob,
full of pride at his discovery.

"Man," said Cameron, "do I look sic a gomeral?  I knew he was there
from the moment I hitched the pony to the tree.  Had he gone it would
have fallen out just as I planned."

And so began the flight of the treasure--Rob creeping through the
darkness of the trees, rolling a cask, stealing noiseless as a shadow
over the wet leaves and bracken, and all the time seeing in the black
night the terrible eyes of Ephraim Macaulay marking his every step.
Backwards and forwards until his back ached, and the moisture stood
heavy upon his brow.  In the passive stillness of the night there was
no breath of danger, no whisper of heather alive with fugitives, and
spies, and nameless wanderers.

As he made for the slope with the last cask he saw Cameron smoothing
over the place with cunning hands, and patting the marks of his
footsteps about the sand.  Then he too followed, and together they
knelt by the stream.

"Now, Rob," said Cameron, "first there'll be a score of Highland
caterans scanning this shore, and after that there'll be the
red-coats, who are sure to get wind of it; and so it's our business,
ye ken, to mak' siccar* of this.  Maybe ye hae never hidden treasure,
Rob, so let us have a crack about it.  Come ye nearer.  Now, when our
friend in the hollow there gets his freedom he'll show a clear pair
o' heels to those who sent him, an' I'm uncommon interested to ken
just who they are."


* Certain.


"No, no," said Rob, with a touch of importance; "he is after me.  He
is a school-master of Inverness...."

"Oh!  Maybe, maybe," broke in Cameron.  "He is capable of being all
that.  But it's mair than you, Rob--though I hate to seem to
undervalue your importance, laddie."

"Then he is not..."

"Whisht!  What does it matter who he is?  So ye understand, Rob.
Follow him, and see whether he makes north or south, and then when ye
know that I will send you on a journey, for I am travelling east
mysel'."

"But Lord Lovat."

The man beside him started.

"What of him, Rob?" he asked quickly.

"Maybe he will require me."

Cameron laid his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Rob," said he very gravely, "Lord Lovat will require mair than you
to save his auld neck, and for mercy's sake dinna breathe a word of
this night's wark to him--nor to onybody but the one ye ken of."

"No," said Rob, "to nobody but the Prince."

"Come then, for time passes.  When the search for this treasure
commences--for mark you a score of eyes must have been watching me
just as closely as your own--what will they do when they dig on the
sand and find an empty huddle o' stanes?  They will examine the
neighbourhood for traces of spade work and footsteps.  They know a
single man like mysel' could not carry those casks mair than a
hundred yards.  They'd come straight here, Rob, like a pack of hounds
on the trail."

"What can we do?" asked Rob, fearing his work was thrown away.

"There is just one thing to do, Rob, and that maybe will sound mighty
ludicrous; but it is always the foolish tricks that are the hardest
to unravel.  When I asked you to show yoursel' upon the lochside,
where it is mair light than I had looked for, it was because I had a
thought, Rob, and it's just this: there are one or two gentry in this
neighbourhood uncommon anxious to watch my doings this night, and,
being a modest man, Rob, I'm no overpleased at the notion," and he
brought his head a little nearer.  "Supposing, Rob," he whispered,
"you were to take my place upon the lochside for a wee half an hour,
or maybe a little over?"

"Take your place?"

"Aye; put on my wig and coat (the hat I shall require), and when the
moon is hid by a cloud, just scrunch upon the pebbles, and sit ye
doon so that your kilt is hid.  It would tak' the eyes o' an owl to
see anything amiss in this dim light, Rob.  Will ye do it, lad?
Would ye?  It is for the Prince, bless him."

"Give me your wig and coat," said Rob for answer.

With a sigh of relief and no further word, Cameron set the wig upon
his head, and wrapped the long great-coat about him, turning up the
collar.  Then they remained in silence gazing at the cold grey sky.

"Quick," said he, at last, "there's a cloud coming," and he pushed
Rob gently from the gloom of the trees.  At the same time he sang a
line of a song for any who might doubt him, and fell back out of
sight.

When the moon swam out of the fleeting patch of cloud it fell upon
the figure of a man who was sitting on a low piece of rock, with his
elbows on his knees, and his back to the shore, and in the dead
stillness of the night who could guess how many watched that black,
crouching form, wondering why he never rose or walked about, but only
sat with his chin in his hand, staring out across the loch.

Meanwhile Cameron passed noiselessly back to the place where the
casks lay.  Forewarned is forearmed, and he was not foolish enough to
suppose that the hiding of treasure in the Cameron country would be
an easy matter.

His clan had much love for him, but they also had an uncommon respect
for gold, and times were hard.  So a week before the frigate had
flashed into Loch-na-nuagh he had dug a hole under a rock in the
stream which ran into Loch Arkaig, and inside the hole had hidden a
small barrel for holding half the contents of the casks (which
contained bags of louis d'or).  The other half, for safety, he had
resolved to conceal elsewhere, while the casks, empty of gold, he had
decided to bury in a hasty fashion just where Rob had placed them.

And in this manner the stiff work began, for only two hours of
darkness remained.

Happily the wind had risen, and the sound of his preparations were
unheard.  That Cameron was nervous and anxious to be done one could
have told by his frenzied haste.  First he walked upstream for fifty
yards with a bag upon his shoulders.  Then he slid a large boulder
across the waterfall to divert the current, and dropped his burden
under the bed of the stream, where the open barrel was ready to
receive them.  Then he returned, never putting foot upon dry land,
and so, with an aching back and bleeding fingers, he toiled on until
at last the barrel was full and the lid on, and the stone rolled back
so that the water rushed over the spot under which the treasure lay.

The digging of a hole for the casks down the stream then commenced,
and that ready, Cameron set off towards the mouth of the burn in the
opposite direction from where the first portion of the gold lay
buried; and still wading in the current, he began to approach the
shore.  About a score of yards from the loch a great rock rose by the
side of the burn, and some six feet above it a single branch of a
tree swayed stiffly in the night breeze, extending in a straight line
from the trunk, for near the shore the hill-side was woody and thick
with undergrowth.

Now the hardest part of the work began.  He first of all slipped a
piece of rope through the loop of the remaining bags holding the end
of it in his hand.  For a moment he rested, then leaping upon the
rock, he crouched an instant, and sprang straight for the thick
branch above him.  Grasping it tightly, he swung himself cross-legged
upon it, and leaning over began to haul the bags up beside him,
slinging the rope securely about the tree.

Having detached the first bag, he conveyed it along the branch, and,
smoothing aside the leaves, there was revealed a hole in the trunk of
the tree about the size of a saucer, into which he squeezed it.  This
he did many times, until the contents of the second half of the casks
were inside the hollow trunk, and then rearranging the leaves, he
took a bird's nest very gravely from inside his hat, and laying it
over the hole, slipped a couple of eggs from a little bag round his
neck inside it, and let himself down again upon the rock.

Then burying the casks as he had planned, and that but carelessly, so
that the top of one of them even stuck a little through the turf, he
threw a few gold pieces upon the ground.  The work was finished.
Stealing back, he gave a low call to Rob, who, waiting a moment,
slipped back to his side.

Cameron without a word slipped on the great-coat and his wig again,
and patting Rob upon the shoulder, led him down upon the beach, where
the bright moonlight made the loch gleam like beaten silver.  The
spade he had concealed in a secret place.

"Let us have a crack together for a moment," said he in a low voice.
"That we will be seen is probable, but I think none watched just now.
Ye might wonder why I," he continued, speaking more loudly, and with
his head turned a little towards the trees, "who have exercised such
care, have trusted you, Rob, who are a stranger to me.  Then I just
canna tell you, for I do not know, and that's the sober truth.
Anyway here is a plan o' the places and other things; and dinna let
this out of your hands, Rob, and if ye are taken, swallow it, or
destroy it in some way.  In case we are watched take it from my hand
as though we were saying good-bye.  Now!" and extending his right
hand, Cameron cried, "Good-bye, Rob," in a very clear voice.  and
made to pass the paper; but with a flustered movement he bungled it,
dropping it upon the ground.

"Tuts!" said he, and stooping quickly made a great business of
thrusting it into Rob's hands.  "Follow that spy to-night," he said,
"and then haste ye on the footsteps of the Prince, and tell him that
I wait his instructions in Lochaber.  Should ye need me send word
that 'there's a muir-fowl snared.'  Mind the words, laddie, for I'll
ken by that ye are taken."

At that moment there was a small noise like a sigh behind them, and
Cameron started and peered into the darkness.

"Speak lower," he said, "you understand?"

"I do," Rob replied.

"Then come.  Let us set the fellow loose, and after that the less we
see of Arkaig the better."  So saying he led the way to the hollow
place.

The moonlight shone smoothly down between the swaying tree-tops, but
it fell upon empty greensward and bristling heather.  No man lay
there.  Not even his ropes remained.  It was as though he had been
spirited away.  Without a word, Cameron drew Rob swiftly back.

"Separate and run," he whispered in an agitated voice, "for we must
be surrounded," and bending his body he darted amongst the trees
towards the open hill-side.  At that Rob overtaken by a sudden fear
of the unknown, and a great dread of Ephraim Macaulay, took to his
heels, and running in a direction at right angles to that in which
Cameron had gone, he doubled on his tracks, and dropped down under a
bank of heather.

Fortunate it was he had done so, for swift flying footsteps sounded
close above his head, and two men sped past him into the wood.  Then,
crawling on hands and feet, he made for the head of the loch.  But he
had travelled a bare five hundred yards before the clear soft note
like the sound of a chanter drifted towards him.  And the bar that it
played was the fantastic, ghostly tune of Muckle John, the same
twisted melody that had so shaken the school-master in Miss
Macpherson's house.

Nearer it came, and he lay flat upon the ground with a fallen tree
before him.  Suddenly on to the moonlit shore stepped a figure he
could not mistake--the huge shoulders and chest, the massive head of
Muckle John himself.  And as he played he peered this way and that,
as though he were in search of some one.

Rob was about to run forward, then as quickly he sank lower in the
shadow.  Something held him back.

Presently Muckle John laid aside the instrument, and whistled the
haunting catch of tune in the moonlight.




CHAPTER VIII

FLIGHT

Fear of the night, the unknown prowlers in the heather, the escape of
the schoolmaster, and above all the danger to his paper, held Rob in
a breathless silence.

And all the time Muckle John was walking towards him, whistling
softly as he came.  Passing a few yards to the left of the fallen
tree behind which Rob was crouching he halted suddenly, and then in a
leisurely fashion seated himself on the trunk of it, with the tails
of his coat almost touching Rob's cheek.

For long enough he remained with his elbows upon his knees staring
out upon the loch, and yet Rob never stirred, biding his time.  At
last with a profound sigh Muckle John began to speak to himself in a
low, musing voice, like a man troubled about something and doubtful
about the course he should take.

"Poor Rob," he said, "where has he got to now?"  Upon which he sighed
again and shook his head.  "I doubt," he murmured, "that they've
taken him--for he no answered my bit whistle.  He would have answered
had he heard, for he promised me, and Rob's no the lad to go back
upon his word--oh no, you'd never suspect Rob of that," and he paused
in a heart-breaking manner as though emotion had fairly overcome him.
As for Rob, it was all he could do not to spring up and catch him by
the hands; but he lay like a stone, utterly miserable, hating the
paper and his wretched suspicions.

"Besides," continued Muckle John more briskly, "I saved the laddie's
life, and glad to do it.  Oh, no, no; dinna tell me that Rob heard
the whistle and ran his neck into the noose I was calling him from.
Poor Rob," said he again, "I doubt but he's laid by the heels by this
time."

Then he stirred a little and began to button his coat.

"I must save Rob," said he in a mighty determined tone, and at that
the boy touched him softly on the coat.

"Muckle John," he whispered.

The man beside him started violently, and came near to falling off
the log altogether, so great appeared to be his astonishment.  But
with an effort at recovery he pushed Rob back.

"Down," he whispered, in Gaelic, "down for your life," and he began
to stretch himself as though he had fallen to sleep.  "Rob," he
murmured at last, "I hope ye did na hear my vapourings."

"I fear I did," replied Rob.

"Well, well, there's no harm where no ill was spoken.  But I was
hurt, ye ken, that you did not heed my whistle.  Speak low, Rob, for
there's been a man behind yon tuft o' heather for the last half-hour."

"I was feared," said Rob, "Ephraim Macaulay was loosed and oh--Muckle
John, I..."

"No suspected me, surely?" he gasped.

"I was feared, ye see, and..."

But Muckle John shook his head, and fell into a soliloquy in Lowland
Scots.

"Oh, Rob, Rob," he said, "this is no pleasant hearing.  It makes
things difficult.  I'm minded to leave ye, Rob, though I shrink frae
doing so, for the country is fair hotching with spies and sic' like,
and at this present moment, there's a wheen men with eyes fair glued
to this spot, and all o' them just hungering for the dawn.  It's a
dangerous ploy ye're engaged upon, Rob, and one beside which Culloden
was as snug as snaring rabbits," and he sighed again with his eyes up
on the loch.

"Rob," he broke out suddenly, "it's enough to mak' me die with shame
when I say it, but it's Macaulay ye think I loosed.  Come then, Rob,
and follow me, and I swear on the naked dirk I'll show ye Macaulay,"
and sliding through the undergrowth, he beckoned back to him.  In
this manner taking advantage of every scrap of cover, they reached
the wood where the mist was rising before the dawn.

At this point Muckle John advanced very cautiously upon his hands and
feet, and Rob marvelled at so large a man moving as softly as a cat.
Of a sudden, however, he dropped upon his stomach and waggled his
foot as a warning.  For men's voices in muttered Gaelic came from
behind a rock immediately to their right.

"He cannot have left the shore, Angus," said one, "for Neil is
watching the brae and we will close in on him at sunrise.  Besides,
he is only a boy."

"There is a great man with him, Donald; who will he be?"

"I am not knowing for sure, Angus, but belike he has taken to the
heather like many another pretty fellow, though he looked like one ye
know of, whose name I will not be mentioning.  Whoever he is--he will
not be meddling with us, Angus."

"But where can the Captain have got to--he was watching Archie
Cameron and then he disappeared, and Cameron too."

With a backward look Muckle John stole on, and Rob and he passed into
the heart of the wood and up to the hollow place where Macaulay had
disappeared.  There Muckle John straightened himself, and pushing
aside the bracken at the lower end of the hollow he beckoned to Rob.

"There," he said, "is your prisoner," and sure enough there lay the
bound and silent form of Ephraim Macaulay.

"But how did he get here?" asked Rob.  "He could not have rolled."

"Rob," replied Muckle John, "I will be franker with you than you have
been with me.  I brought him here mysel'."

"You?"

"And who else?  But let that be.  I have a notion that we must
hurry," and he began to unloose the ropes about the prisoner's hands.

Rob watched him without a word, too perplexed to speak.

"Muckle John," he whispered at last, "could we no mak' use of his
clothes?"

"Tuts," he replied, "it's evident ye were much impressed with
Culloden day; but I would scorn to use an auld trick like that twice
in one week.  There are folk, Rob, would send the word round that
Muckle John was no what he was," and he turned again to Macaulay and
loosed his feet.  But the gag he left in his mouth, only removing the
bandage from his eyes.  "Now, sir," he went on, addressing Macaulay
in a low voice, "I have here a dirk which does its work secretly and
yet with dispatch.  Ye take my meaning?  I have also a loaded pistol
in my pocket, and I flatter myself you are acquainted with my
marksmanship.  Before we start upon our jaunt there are one or two
questions I would ask ye.  Just nod your head and I'll excuse a civil
answer.  I take it that we are surrounded here?"

A violent nod could just be discerned in the gloom.

"Thank ye.  In which quarter are your people gathered?  Point with
your hand."

After a momentary hesitation the prisoner pointed towards the west.

"Brawly done, sir, I knew I could trust you to lie.  So we will gang
to the left just to spite ye.  Now walk between us, and mind, my dirk
is itching for a dig into your ribs.  If we are challenged say it is
only twa o' your friends, and at the first word o' treachery I'll
stick you like a pig."  With this caution, he drew the gag out of
Macaulay's mouth.

"Hark ye, Rob," he went on in a low tone.  "There are a score of men
around this place, and they're after something with which you are no
unacquainted.  Should we win through there will be no rest for us
till we are well out of the Cameron country--but I doubt the length
and breadth of the Highlands will hardly be large enough."

All this he said in a very grave voice, and then taking Macaulay by
the arm, he led him towards the hill-front with Rob upon his other
side.

The dawn was near at hand and the driving mist fell cold as ice upon
their faces.  Down below them they could see the cold sheen of the
loch, and hear the wild fowl crying in the reeds.  After a full
quarter of a mile Muckle John halted.

"Now, Rob," said he, "we have reached their line of watchers.  As we
pass up the brae, we will be scanned by many an unseen eye.  Dinna
speak, but nod to me when I address ye, and tak' the upper side, for
you are nane the waur for a bit heightening," and with that they left
the shelter of the trees.  In the dim, grey light, the hillside
looked very wan and desolate.  A whaup was crying mournfully over a
lonely pool of hill water.  Like a shadow a dog-fox, homeward bound,
slipped over the path and was swallowed up amongst the crags.

No other sound reached their ears.

Suddenly from the heather at their very feet a man leapt up--a squat,
red-headed fellow with a naked dirk in his hand.  Something in
Macaulay's dim face seemed to have aroused his suspicions.

"Who are you?" he cried in Gaelic.

"Answer him," growled Muckle John in Macaulay's ear, but before he
could say a word, the Highlander had scanned Rob's face, and with a
shrill warning scream he leaped backward into the heather.  It was
his last mortal word.  With a whistle of flying steel Muckle John
whipped his claymore free, and lunging as it swung from the scabbard,
drove the blade in to the hilt.

With a terrible cry the man slithered backwards and coughed, and Rob
turned sick at the manner in which he writhed in the heather.
Through the mist half a dozen forms came running in their direction.
There was not a moment to lose.  Hastily disengaging his sword,
Muckle John flung his great-coat about the head of the schoolmaster,
and hurling him down the hillside dragged Rob to his knees with a
hand upon his mouth.

The clatter of Macaulay's flying form and his muffled cries drew the
newcomers past the place where they lay, and then springing to his
hands and feet Muckle John made off in the opposite direction into
the heart of the swirling mist.  There was a brief silence and then
far away, came a shrill yell taken up again and again until every
crag seemed alive with voices, and the faint glow of the rising sun
made their escape seem impossible.

"They've found him," cried Muckle John, mounting the hillside at a
great pace with Rob at his heels, "so it's save your breath and
follow me."

There was little cover on that part of the hill, and it was evident
from the frenzied shouts rising from below, that their pursuers had
seen them crossing an open space.

"Quicker, Rob!" cried Muckle John, darting away like a hare, his head
bent below his shoulders as he ran.

At last, when they had reached a mass of crags and loose stones, he
dropped behind the first, dodging back along the upper part of the
slope, while Rob scrambled behind him.  They halted for a moment,
about five hundred yards higher than the way they had passed a few
minutes before, and Muckle John peeped round a boulder and scanned
the misty slope beneath.

"Look," said he at last.  Far below, by stretching his head forward,
Rob saw many forms moving like dots amongst the heather.  Foremost of
all came Ephraim Macaulay, waving them on; then, in a rude half-moon,
swept some thirty ragged Highlanders, shock-headed, bearded, fierce
looking caterans, racing like dogs upon the trail.

"Broken men," said Muckle John grimly, watching them as keenly as a
fox watches the hounds.  "Cameron rogues and nameless cattle.  Would
we were out of this country."

The sun was rising over the glen, and even in that hour of deadly
peril Rob must needs admire the gold light upon the blue loch, and
the fresh greenness of the spring in the trees far below.

Their pursuers had now reached the point where they had doubled back
along the hill, and here they were put out, searching the rocks, and
spying along the other slope and making closer search.

"It was that last burst did it, Rob," whispered Muckle John, in a
glow at his cleverness; "but I must admit I'm no liking the position.
They're anxious to lay hands on ye, Rob, and that's the truth.  I'm
thinking it must be grand information ye carry, but I'm no the man to
question onybody about what best concerns himsel'."  Shaking his head
he took to watching the movements of their pursuers again.

"I wish I could tell you, Muckle John," replied Rob unhappily.

"Och," said he with a great show of indifference, "I was only daffing
ye.  It's maybe only because ye were seen wi' Archie Cameron.  He's
no good company for folk just now."

"He's a brave gentleman, Muckle John."

"Oh, maybe; but there's aye some one to bring up stories against a
man.  Some say he is faithful to the Prince, but others whose names
I'm not knowing will tell you he has an eye to his own affairs."

Rob listened with a flush of indignation upon his face.

"You do him wrong," he blurted out.  "The Prince has need to thank
him for last night's work, and I'm bound to carry word of it."

He paused abruptly, fearing he had said too much.  But Muckle John
was apparently intent upon the hillside.

"Look," said he, "they're coming straight for us.  Now, Rob, it will
be touch and go, and do what I tell you without question, for I know
this country like my ain hand; and I tell ye at once that if we are
not twenty mile on the other side of them before nightfall, we might
as well cut our ain throats.  And, Rob, mind it's you they're after,
no me.  Should you care to hand anything over for safe keeping, just
in case--ye ken--" and he paused, looking over Rob's head.

"That I cannot," said Rob firmly.

"Then follow me," was all the answer Muckle John gave, and putting a
huge rock between them and their enemies, they ran swiftly slant-wise
up the slope until they reached the summit, where for a moment Muckle
John looked back.  The great half-moon formation of the ascending
Highlanders was moving quickly upwards.

"This is no red-coat work," he gasped, "but tartan against tartan,
and fox hunting fox," and away they went along the opposite side of
the hill, just low enough to miss the sky-line.

As luck would have it that part of the hill was very bare and empty
of cover, and ere they had gone half a mile a distant shout warned
them that they were seen, and that the whole force of their pursuers
was now upon their line of flight.

Rob saw a sudden tightening of Muckle John's mouth, and now it ceased
to be a game of hide and seek, but a race for dear life.  The pace
was terrible.  Rob's lungs were bursting with the straining, so that
red flashes of light swam before his eyes.

"Quicker!" cried Muckle John, "they are gaining!  Oh, can ye no mak'
a sprint, Rob--only a hundred yards?"

For a while Rob struggled on, stumbling and gasping, until at last
his foot caught in a tuft of heather, and he fell heavily to the
ground.  Without a word or pause, Muckle John, who was leading by
some ten feet, turned swiftly, and picking him up, continued his wild
race for the broken rocks that lay before them.

Two hundred yards behind came the foremost Highlanders, leaping over
the ground in bounds, their claymores ready in their hands.  A
minute, and Muckle John had passed among the rocks, then doubling
right and left, he sped towards a monstrous boulder, and scrambling
up, pulled Rob on top.  Now on the back of this boulder lay another
great stone poised upon it, and carrying Rob over his shoulder, he
clambered up and so to a cleft in the side of the precipice which
fronted the hill.

Rob had been too blinded by exhaustion to notice that before them lay
what was apparently a cul-de-sac with bare crag on every side, and
had he done so he would have realized why the Highlanders had bared
their swords.  For they were to all appearances in a death-trap.

But Muckle John, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his coat, seemed
well enough content, and placing Rob upon the barren cleft, he turned
about and looked down upon the scene below.  His assailants were
gathered about the rock on which he had first sprung, and were
debating what course to take.  Far behind came the main body, and
still farther away, Ephraim Macaulay.

"Rob," said Muckle John, "have you your wind yet?"

The boy groaned in reply, but struggled to his feet.

"Now," said Muckle John, "I am not the daft fool ye no doubt take me
for--there is a way up this cliff only known to me and one other.
You see this cleft?  It runs for fifty yards in a slanting direction,
and there's little enough foothold.  There is a break at the corner
there and a bit jump of maybe two feet, but no easy, with just a bare
rock and six inches to land on.  But dinna waver or lose heart, for
there's no return and it's certain death to bide here.  After that,
climb straight up, but leaning to the left, and when ye reach a small
tree-stump wait for me, for then it becomes no easy matter."

For a moment Rob hesitated, but Muckle John pushed him gently on the
shoulder.

"It's death here," said he again, "for they can go back and reach the
top in two hours." Then in a leisurely manner he drew his claymore to
hold the rock against assault.

Knowing that if he hesitated he was lost, Rob set foot upon the
narrow path that ran along the smooth edge of rock, and never looking
down for fear of turning giddy, he wormed his way upwards, feeling
every foot of the slippery surface.

A sudden silence fell upon the onlookers below, and then a harsh
noise of voices reached him, and a moment later a stone crashed on
the rock within a foot of his head.

"Haud tight, Rob," shouted Muckle John; "dinna mind them!" and
whipping out his pistol he fired, shattering the arm of another man
who was poised for his aim.

Had any one of them there carried a musket, Rob would have been shot
like a crow, but as Muckle John shrewdly guessed, no one of that
ragged crew had more than cold steel, though that was ready should
the boy falter and fall.

But creeping onward he reached the place where the empty space lay,
and without a pause he stepped across, regained his balance and
disappeared round the corner.  At that a great yell of anger broke
out, and a sudden rush was made for the lowest rock, upon which half
a dozen men climbed and thence swarmed up within three feet of where
Muckle John stood, awaiting them.

At that he swung down upon them, and laying about him with his
claymore, cleared the stone and stood looking upon the crowd of his
enemies with great good-humour.  Growling sullen threats, they fell
back out of reach of his deadly sword, and so, setting his back
against the crag, he drew out his whistle and, placing the hilt of
his claymore between his legs, he broke into a Highland rant.

Now the story of that tune was one peculiarly obnoxious to the men
below, for it was written to commemorate a great clan battle, in
which the people of the West had not covered their name with glory.
He played it with grim relish, giving it such a sprightly measure,
that every note seemed a jeer and a bitter gibe at their kith and kin.

Indeed, so engrossed did he grow with his melody, that he did not
notice a man to his left pick up a great stone, and launch it like a
flash upon him.  Moreover, it was aimed with a deadly purpose, for it
took the claymore on the blade and sent it spinning over the edge
upon the earth below.

With a cry Muckle John leaped for the cleft.  The men below, with a
wild shout, swarmed up like hungry wolves upon the place he had
abandoned.

And then drawing his pistol and dirk, he fell upon his knees like a
wild-cat defending its lair with tooth and claw, and sent the first
man hurtling backwards with a bullet in his brain.

"Lochaber pig," he taunted, "it takes a dirk to make you squeal."

"Man without a tartan," they screamed back in Gaelic,
"landless--nameless one..."

"No name is better than a Lochaber name," he cried with a laugh,
driving them back for the third time.

But his position was desperate, for the long blades of his assailants
could reach him before he could reload, and his dirk was useless
except at close quarters.

Now beside him there was a rugged boulder of about three feet in
diameter, and no sooner had his eye rested on that, than he bent his
long arms around it, and pushing it to the edge rolled it over upon
the jeering faces within a few feet of his own, and without watching
the panic that it caused, he sprang upon the narrow cleft and began
to pass along the road that Rob had gone before.

But now things were very different.  Below him, a dozen men had
stones in their hands--behind him, those who had the courage were
already mounting the dead-strewn rock to follow him.

There was for all that a mocking twinkle in Muckle John's eyes, and
he whistled a bar of the tune he had played, and so, walking steadily
onward, reached the empty space.  It was that critical moment that
they had selected for their volley of stones, and indeed it would
have gone ill with anyone knocked off his balance at such a time.

But this Muckle John realized as much as they, and out of the corner
of his eye he had gauged their scheme to a nicety.  He made a step
forward, therefore, and a very quick fling back, which few could do
where there was not room for the feet to stand, ankle to ankle.  And
as the stones rattled upon the face of the rock instead of his own,
he crossed very coolly and passed on.

Foiled in that plan, they took to aiming at him indiscriminately, and
the dull thud upon his side and legs reached Rob up above.  Soon a
stone cut his face, and he must needs wipe the blood out of his eyes
to see his way, which delayed him and brought his pursuers (the few
who dared) the nearer.

But he crept on, nevertheless, and at last reached Rob, and supported
himself by the little broken tree.

"Oh, Rob, Rob," he gasped, "I nearly spoilt all.  Follow me, for
they'll turn the corner in a minute.  Once let us get back to the
top, Rob, and there's no going back," and he looked down upon the
heads of their pursuers with a meaning smile.

The last five yards were as hazardous as the rest, and more than once
Rob gave himself up for lost.  But each time Muckle John steadied him
and jested, and whistled a snatch of tune.

At last they scrambled upon level ground, and lay with bleeding
fingers and knees and all the strength gone out of them.

Some minutes passed, and from below came the faint shuffling of
footsteps.  With a groan Rob struggled up and peered over.  A
dreadful sight faced him.  About twenty yards beneath, where one man
was forced to climb upon the other's shoulders, the foothold had
failed, and after a momentary, fluttering grasp at the thin grass
that grew in patches here and there, a mournful cry went up, and the
two bodies slid and tumbled and sped out of sight.

"They're killed!" cried Rob.

Muckle John rose stiffly to his feet.

"I said there were but two who knew the way," he replied, "and one is
mysel'," and he stretched himself and began to walk up the slope of
the hill.

"Come, Rob," said he, over his shoulder, "they'll be after us now,
but we have two hours' start, which, saving the English, should prove
sufficient."

Then quite suddenly he stopped in his tracks, and stared with a frown
upon the glen below.  Drawing Rob forward, he pointed downwards,
saying no word.

And Rob said nothing either; there was nothing to say.

All along the valley and up into the hills beyond were scattered tiny
white tents, and little figures in red coats moved hither and thither
like ants in an open space amongst the heather, while the sun shone
and glinted on white flickers of steel.




CHAPTER IX

THE TURN OF THE SCALES

"Rob," said Muckle John, "this is a nice business, for here we are
with the wild Cameron country and Arkaig safely behind us, and within
a few steps of Glengarry's land, for which we have been struggling
for the last four hours and more."

To the south-east of them was Glen-Pean and Glen-Kingie stretching
out in solitude.  But between them and comparative safety lay the
sleeping English tents, and nearing them at every moment were the
Camerons and Macaulay.  Muckle John shook his head gloomily.  "We
canna go back, Rob, and we canna go forward--at least no until
nightfall, and then we're like to meet with a bullet."

He lay upon the ground, and chewed a piece of grass, eyeing the
English tents with a frown.

"We're as good as lost," said Rob hopelessly.

"Man Rob," replied Muckle John grimly, "ye possess a rare
discernment."

With a sigh Rob let him be, and took to thinking about his own
desperate affairs.  Twice during the past twelve hours he had been on
the point of destroying the paper and each time he was thankful that
he had waited.  But now they were as good as lost.  Captured either
by the English or by Macaulay they were doomed for a quick death, and
the dispatch would prove a great piece of treasure-trove for
either--the map that would show the way to Prince Charlie's gold,
with which he could buy ten thousand men to his standard.  At least
that was how Rob looked at it, and some would say there was some
truth in what he believed.

It was the thought of the money falling into such hands that
determined him to destroy the map.  He stole a glance at Muckle John,
but his eyes were fixed steadily on vacancy.  Then slipping away, he
leaned with his back against a rock, and drew the envelope cautiously
from the side of his brogue, where he had concealed it.

It was sealed and addressed to the Prince.  Rob had hardly time to
glance at it, however, before a warning call from Muckle John made
him spring to his feet, the paper still in his hand.

"See, Rob," cried he, but eyeing the piece of paper keenly, "here
comes Macaulay from the west, so we must decide on the instant.  Once
and for the last time, hae ye onything that I can tak' charge of, for
it's you they'll search, no me."

Rob felt himself weakening, but again his promise to Cameron withheld
him.

"No," he cried, and made as though to tear the paper in two.

"You doited fool!" screamed Muckle John, rushing at his hands.

Rob with quick alarm leaped aside, and the big man tripped and
floundered along the ground.  What was he to do?  But of a sudden he
stood still.  Why should he doubt Muckle John?

"I've taken your advice," he said, and showed the piece of paper in
his hand.

"It's only what seems reasonable," replied Muckle John.  "Now put it
by, for it's neck or nothing for us, Rob."

"Have you a plan?" asked the boy, with his eyes on the white tents
and his heart in a sad state of fright.

"A sort of a plan," he replied, and started at a run rewards the
English.

Without a word Rob followed him.  There was no time to question such
a course, and already Macaulay was within a mile of them.  But when
he saw them heading for the tents in the glen below he paused, as
well he might, for the sight of two Jacobite rebels scampering
towards an English camp was sufficiently arresting.

The Highlanders with him, who had no wish for nearer acquaintance
with red-coated soldiery, slackened their pace too, and, dropping
below the sky-line, became invisible in the heather.

On ran Muckle John, and behind him Rob, until an English sentinel
raised his musket and called to them to halt.  The boy glanced
anxiously at his companion's face.  But he gathered nothing there.
There was certainly no sign of fear.

"Who goes there?" cried the sentry.

Quite quietly Muckle John thrust a hand into his great-coat pocket.

"Here is my passport," he replied, "and this is my guide.  I am
Captain Strange, on special duty in the west," and he handed over a
document to the man, who read it slowly, and then saluting, stood at
attention until they had passed.

When they were about twenty yards distant, however, Muckle John spoke
in a low voice to Rob.

"Look up the hill," he said, "and tell me if Macaulay is coming down."

But there was no one to be seen, and on learning that, Muckle John
gave a great sigh as though he were vastly relieved.

They neared the tents and were walking on, when an officer rose to
his feet and stopped them.

"Who are you?" he asked, "and what kind of Highland wild-cat is
that?" pointing with the end of his sword at Rob.

"I am Captain Strange," said Muckle John.

"Strange," echoed the man, who seemed a good-humoured fellow, greatly
bored with sitting among the hills.  "Oh yes, I ken ye by name, and I
am Captain Campbell, at your service.  Come and have a crack inside,"
and he made to enter his tent.

With a momentary hesitation Muckle John followed him, but first of
all he took one swift sweeping glance over his shoulder at the
hillside.

Then, seating himself within, he fell into conversation, while Rob
waited outside the tent, watching the soldiers standing at their
posts, or marching up and down amongst the heather.

All the time a curious presentiment of fear grew heavy upon him,
which the silent day only intensified.

"I take it you were at Culloden," said Captain Campbell; "that must
have been a poorlike affair."

"None so poor," said Muckle John; "where there are starving men and
bickering chiefs you don't look for much resistance, but they broke
two lines, sir."

"Did they so?  It is evident the Argyll men were not in prominence."

"No," replied Muckle John drily, "the Campbells were employed in
pulling down walls."

The other eyed him uncertainly.  He felt the sting under his words.

"If the business had been left to the Duke," said he, "there would
have been no call for levies from the Low Country."

"If it had been left to the Duke," replied Muckle John, "every clan
in the north would have made havoc of Argyll."

"You speak strangely, sir--I take it you mean no offence to the Clan
Campbell?"

"I," echoed Muckle John, "what have I against them?  I am a
Lowlander, as my name tells ye; we canna all be born across the
Highland line."

"Well, well, Captain Strange, there are braw men on both sides; I
take it you are on the trail of the rebel leaders?"

"And who else?  But I would as wittingly trap foxes in Badenoch; they
disappear like peat reek on a summer's night."

Captain Campbell nodded his head, and taking out a dispatch from his
pocket, he drew his stool a shade nearer.

"You come at an opportune time," he said, "for here is a dispatch in
which your name appears, and certain secret information is contained
for transmission to you."

"Indeed, sir," said Muckle John, all attention.

"It has reached the knowledge of the Duke of Cumberland that certain
rebels are concealed about the shores of Arkaig, and amongst them
Lord Lovat, who has fled in that direction from Gortuleg House.  Two
days after Culloden, a party of dragoons surrounded the latter place,
but he had gone, carrying his papers with him.  He is an old man, and
should not evade capture long.  The Duke places the utmost importance
on his capture.  If Lovat is taken, he is assured all further trouble
will simmer out.  As long as Lovat lives he will counsel resistance,
and that may mean months of service in the hills."

"Are any others mentioned?"

"It is stated that French gold has been landed at a place near
Arkaig, and here is a warrant to arrest two rebels who have knowledge
of it--one is a boy, Rob Fraser by name, who is acquainted with the
hiding-place of Lord Lovat, and the other is--who do you think?"

"Who indeed, sir?  Lochiel--Cluny...?"

"No, no, who but Muckle John, the most dangerous of them all when
mischief is afoot."

"Muckle John?  But is he not abroad?"

"Abroad--who ever heard of him abroad when there is a head to crack
at home?  They say he is wanted on a charge in the Low Countries."

"A dangerous fellow," said Muckle John severely, "and yet there's a
kind of quality about the man--a bird of passage, Captain Campbell,
and a bonny player on the chanter."

"More a gallows-bird than any other.  He'll whistle a thin enough
tune when the Duke has finished with him.  He lays great stress on
his taking, I can tell ye.  He can spin a yarn, Captain Strange, that
will be worth hearing, I'll be bound.  He and that boy, Rob Fraser,
are in company, as desperate a pair as ever skulk in the heather this
day."

"I take it there is no saying where they lie?"

The other winked very slyly at that.

"The net is closing," he said, "and once the boy is caught, there is
small chance of the other going loose."


In the meantime, Rob was outside, and he wished Muckle John would
come.  Before them was a weary tramp, and already he was tired.  His
eyes shut for a moment--then opened and shut again.  He took to
thinking of his father, and how it fared with Lord Lovat, and so
thinking he fell asleep.

His awakening was rude enough, for before he could open his eyes his
arms were held behind his back, and he was hoisted roughly to his
feet.  The officer, good-humoured no longer, was facing him, while
half a dozen red-coats shut him off from all chance of escape.

And before him stood Ephraim Macaulay.

"Which of you is Captain Strange?" cried Captain Campbell, very red
in the face, and looking back towards his tent as though he awaited
an indignant reply from within.

"I am Captain Strange," replied Macaulay stiffly.

"Then where are your papers?"

"They were stolen by the man who came with his boy, who was sleeping
outside your tent."

"Be careful of your words, sir.  How am I to know that you are what
you say?"

"Perhaps you did not trouble to read the particulars on the passport?"

"No, sir--I admit that I did not."

"Then if you had you would have realized that I am not six foot two
or thereabouts, or travel with a notorious rebel, such as that boy
there.  Also that my name is not--Muckle John."

"MUCKLE JOHN!" shouted the officer, "if what you say is true," he
cried, and breaking off he started running towards the tent and
peered within, then parting the folds, disappeared altogether.  But
an instant later, he was tearing about the camp like a man gone mad.

"He's made off!" he shouted.  "Sound the bugle there, and search the
hills!"  Then plunging into his tent again, he reappeared with his
hat in his hand.

For Muckle John had taken his departure, leaving behind him only a
neat hole in the canvas of the tent, on the side farthest from the
real Captain Strange, whose reputation as a secret agent in the
English service did not warrant for his future safety.  For long the
soldiers searched, but no sign of Muckle John was discovered, and
none had seen him go.

To Rob, however, this was poor comfort, for bound hand and foot and
guarded by two soldiers he passed a miserable night, and when morning
came he was set between a file of soldiers, and the march to Fort
Augustus commenced, where it was rumoured that the Duke of Cumberland
would arrive that day.

It was not till mid-day that his hands were loosed, and then, very
cautiously, he searched for the precious paper, knowing that the time
for its destruction was come.

His fingers ran cautiously down the side of his brogue.  He did so
lying on his side, and his legs tucked up under his kilt.

_But all in vain, for the paper was gone_.




CHAPTER X

THE LAST FLICKER

It is an error to suppose that the Jacobites were ready to surrender
all hope of resistance without a last bid for terms, if not for
victory.  Culloden was lost, but a large body of the clans had not
come up in time to engage in the battle.  An ignominious flight spelt
utter ruin to the chiefs and unquestioned submission to the
Government, whereas a stand in the hills was eminently suited to
Highland warfare.  Cavalry were useless in rough country and southern
soldiers easily outwitted and confused.

Had Prince Charles not lost his head in the debacle of Culloden he
might have remained King of the Highlands if not of Scotland itself.

Unfortunately, the strength of the Jacobite army was also its
greatest weakness.  Quick to mobilize and equipped by centuries of
warfare for the field, they were also unaccustomed to a prolonged
campaign.  The quick fight and the swift retreat, the raid by night
and the tireless pursuit were their notion of war.  They cared little
enough for the rights or wrongs of a quarrel so long as they could
kill a man or two, and make home again with a few head of cattle.

For this reason the delay and confusion following hard upon Culloden
played havoc with the Jacobite army.  Once their faces were set
homewards no power on earth could stop the clans.  They were weary of
campaigning on scanty fare and small pay.  A few short days and the
Children of the Mist were gathered into their own mountains and the
army had melted into a few scattered remnants waiting for a leader.
On the shores of Arkaig a few futile conferences took place, and then
followed hard the inevitable dispersion.

Lord Lovat, on whom the chiefs still laid a certain trust, was
carried to Muirlaggan, where Lochiel, Glenbucket, Murray of Broughton
and others awaited him.

They rose as he was carried into their midst, moved by a kind of
reverence for infirm old age.

Murray of Broughton shivering with illness, with flickering agitated
eyes, stood tapping with his fingers upon the rough table.  He knew
Lovat of old, and had suffered at his hands; Lochiel, pale from his
wound, looked liked a man more heart-broken than anxious.  Of all the
Jacobite leaders he was the great gentleman and one whose life and
motives were of the purest.

Lord Lovat was perfectly at his ease.  He took the head of the table
without question, scrutinizing each face from under his shaggy brows
unconquered as ever.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "I take it ye have not accepted Culloden
day as your _coup de grâce_?"

Lochiel shook his head.

"No, no," he said vacantly, "it is our poor people that we are minded
of," at which Murray nodded, avoiding Lovat's stony stare.

"I too, have a clan," said the old man sombrely, "I have never
forgotten that.  There is also my son."

They had in common courtesy to acknowledge that he was as deeply
involved as any.

"It is our duty to prevent Cumberland taking a ruthless vengeance on
our people," he continued; "rather than leave them to Hanoverian
justice, we should be prepared to die sword in hand."

Murray of Broughton stirred uneasily.

"I fear your lordship does not know how scattered our forces are--the
Prince flying for his life--the clans unwilling to mobilize again."

Very slowly Lovat raised his face, and stared Murray down.  Then
turning to Lochiel he said: "Is that not true?" as though the
Prince's secretary had not spoken at all.

"I am ready to sacrifice everything if we can make a stand," replied
the chief of the Camerons simply.

"I think your lordship did not catch my meaning," broke in Murray in
a fluster.

"I think," corrected Lovat with composure, "I caught it finely."

"Your lordship's pardon if I seem to take a liberty," said Roy
Stuart, "but what can we do more than we have done during the last
few months?  We have been promised French aid--none has come.  We
have looked for French gold--there has been little enough of that.
The English Jacobites have lain like rats in a hole."

"And we--those of us who can run," retorted Lovat, "are like rats
without a hole.  There are occasions, Mr. Stuart, when even rats can
face the cat--and rout him too."

"The Prince has ordered us to disperse," bleated Murray in a flutter
of nerves and tepid anger.

"The Prince," barked Lovat, "gave his last order on Culloden Moor.
We are done with princes and Irishmen and grand French promises; we
are men with everything to lose and something to gain.  Maybe your
profession, Mr. Murray, or is it your Lowland blood, has made you
unacquainted with the lengths that despair may drive a man."

"You are pleased to sneer, sir," blurted out Murray.

"I trust," replied Lovat, in a melancholy undertone, "you may never
have a chance to repay the compliment."

"Come, come," broke in Lochiel, "this is no time for contentions.  If
it is decided that we shall raise the clans we must make speed.  I
take it that we are of one mind upon that?"

Lovat nodded his head before any could speak.

"Could we but raise a few thousand men," he said, "and we shall show
the Duke what Highland warfare may mean.  Let us meet again in ten
days' time each with his people.  Send out the summons, Lochiel.  Let
the Prince take ship to France if he will--so long as we do not
betray each other" (and here he looked hard at Murray) "we are as
safe as wild-cats in Argyll."

There was a loud murmur of approval from those about him.  Now, as
always, Lovat had carried the day.  He had come, an old sick man,
coughing in his litter, facing a dozen men fairly eaten up with fear
and perplexity.  In one short hour he had them at his heel.  With a
body as sound as his mind he would have raised the Highlands himself.

Still Murray of Broughton, that creaking door, must have his word.
It was more his habit of mind than any real evil in the man.  He was
the soul of method, and concise as the Lord President himself.
Perhaps he suspected Lovat, as Lovat in all sincerity suspected him.
Perhaps he was influenced by such reason as he possessed.  It may be
that he foresaw what was ordained, and knew Lovat for what he was.

"My lord," he said in his hesitating voice, "I have little influence
here--I have no people to consider--I am not a soldier, only a man of
business who has tried to serve the cause."

They waited while Lovat watched him as a snake watches a rabbit.

"Supposing, my lord, that the clans are persuaded to rise again, what
kind of campaign can you carry on?  Where can you obtain your
supplies, your ammunition, or money to pay our troops?  Already the
coast is patrolled--the Highlands surrounded and the roads to the
south cut off--what kind of mercy will the isolated places
receive--the very places where you hope to obtain provisions?  They
will so harry the country, my lord, to starve you out that the very
sight of women and children coming to you in the direst starvation
will make you regret this step.  It is starvation, and not defeat,
will give you your answer, my lord."

"There's truth in what he says," murmured a man behind Lochiel.

"Mr. Murray," said Lovat, "I doubt not you speak with sincerity, but
this is a matter on which we must take our own counsel.  Look to your
own safety, Mr. Murray, and no gentleman here will say you acted
unbecomingly."

It had become a contest between these two--Lovat forcing the pace to
save his neck, and Murray, knowing what was behind it all,
struggling, who can say why, to dissuade them from further bloodshed.

He moistened his lips and played his last card.

"As you will, gentlemen," he said suavely, "It is for you to decide.
But as a man of business, since your lordship has discounted any
finer qualities in me, might I suggest that perhaps a memorandum of
this meeting, a pledge to bind us together, would give adhesion to
such a proposal.  It is only natural, and in desperate straits where
all must live or fall together, a prudent course to take."

Lovat gripped the edge of the table with his hands.  This was a blow
indeed.  His face changed colour.  He seemed for a moment to quiver
as though he were icy cold, his head commencing to shake from side to
side.

"I agree to that entirely," said Lochiel.

"No, no," came from Lovat in a whisper.

Murray watched him with all the relish of a weak man scoring a rare
triumph.

"Did your lordship speak?" he asked.

"I did," said Lovat, rising to his strength again, "I see nothing but
danger and needless formality in such proceedings.  We are not men of
business, Mr. Murray--we are Highland gentlemen."

It was a bold throw, but it won the hearts of many there, who hated
Murray and his fiddling Lowland ways.  Only Lochiel said nothing,
swayed two ways at once, and ready to faint with the pain of his
wound.

"I think," broke in Roy Stuart, "we should defer signing until we
meet again."

"Bravely spoken," remarked Lovat, "let us meet with our men in ten
days' time.  I can promise three hundred Frasers, if not more."

They all rose at that and conferred together before parting, each one
promising a regiment, and that word should go through the hills.

Only Murray stood alone, and only Murray saw a man enter with a
package and hand it to Lovat.  He watched the old man open it--he
noted how he started and frowned.  More than that, he read the sudden
terror in his face.

"Bring that man back!" cried the Fraser, but none heard him (save
Murray), and when he learned at last that the messenger was nowhere
to be found he groaned and a kind of despair settled upon his face
like a mask.

But the thing that puzzled Murray was the nature of the package.  For
it held no paper (that he could see) but only a strip of Fraser
tartan, and that very stained in one corner like the discoloration of
blood.




CHAPTER XI

A NARROW ESCAPE

Now when Muckle John had heard the voice of Macaulay--or, to give him
his real name, Captain Strange--approaching the tent, he had moved
ever so slightly backward and loosened his dirk.  The inevitable had
happened, and he had played with fire too long.  And so, when the
officer hurried out to meet the new arrival, he did a number of
things very quickly.

But the first was the cutting of the canvas farthest from the
entrance.  Then with a dive he was through, and with the tent between
him and his enemies.

To the right of him, about a hundred yards distant, was a sentry,
standing with his back turned, looking towards the hill opposite.  On
his left again were a group of red-coats off duty and playing cards.

To cross the open space and reach the slope unseen would seem
impossible, and yet Muckle John did it, and what is more, took two
hours about it, which in a period of acute danger might seem
leisurely travelling.

What his quick eyes fell upon first was a horse grazing thirty yards
away.  But that he put out of his mind as too hazardous a risk.
About half that distance away, however, a tussock of hay was lying--a
loosely bound pile about eight feet long and four broad.

When Muckle John saw that he breathed again, and taking off his hat,
he hurled it in the direction of the hay, then waited patiently.
Fortunately, no one saw it skim into the air and drop upon the ground.

By this time Strange had roused the officer's indignation and then
his alarm.  He did exactly what any ordinary man would have done in
the circumstances.  He dashed into the tent--he saw the tear and
peered quickly through it.  But Muckle John was round the flap and
unseen.  Then, realizing that his late guest had bolted, he darted
through the door of the tent again, and bawled the order to arms.

At that Muckle John moved like lightning.  He did not dash for the
tussock of hay; he knew that such an obvious place of refuge would
attract them first.  He quite softly re-entered the tent through the
slit, and, crawling under the bedding on the floor, he watched the
scurrying soldiers outside with keen and calculating eyes.

Half a dozen, headed by Campbell, charged the hay and turned it over
and over.  Then Strange, not satisfied with that, drove his sword
into the midst of it, and poked and jabbed with extraordinary
determination, at which Muckle John smiled and lay still.  He had not
to wait long, however, for the inevitable discovery of his hat sent
them post-haste towards the heather and the rough country beyond, and
saved a closer search nearer home, which was just what Muckle John
had feared and planned to prevent.

Away went the soldiers with Strange and the little red-faced officer,
and the camp, saving the sentries, was clear.

So the first onward move commenced.  With a spring, Muckle John was
through the slit, and darting over the intervening space, he reached
the mangled tussock of hay and crawled beneath it.  A rope bound it
loosely together.  Slipping between this and the hay, and trusting to
luck that his boots were hid, he began to move in inches over the
ground.

By the time the first soldiers passed wearily and footsore into camp,
too hot and tired for further searching, he had covered twenty yards.

After them came Strange and the officer, deep in talk.  They tramped
past and all was quiet again.  And then, to his profound dismay, two
soldiers, late-comers from the pursuit, sank down upon the hay, and
prepared to rest themselves.

"Uncommon 'ard this 'ay," said one of them.

"That it be, Silas--but likewise uncommon soft after 'eather," and
one of them yawned and loosened his jacket.

"What wilt do with the youngster, think ye?" asked one.

"Shoot 'im at Fort Augustus," replied the other.  "Heard Captain say
as 'ow we march there to-morrow.  Seems cruel t'shoot a mere shaver,
Silas."

"It's not as if 'e was a Christian, belike, but only an 'Ighlander,"
replied Silas.

"That be so," answered the other, apparently reassured.

To Muckle John the information was of interest.  But for the moment
he was more anxious about the future.

Fortunately, the short afternoon was closing in, and a cold spring
wind came blowing off the snow-topped hills.  It set the soldiers
shivering and stumbling camp wards.  It also set Muckle John free and
travelling slowly towards the rough land at the foot of the slope.

And then he thrust his head through the hay, like a tortoise out of
its shell, and looked about him.

To his right stood a sentry, apparently dozing, To his left, another
sentry, but marching to and fro to keep warm.  Very patiently Muckle
John waited for several things to happen.  It was inevitable that
darkness would fall soon, and that meant safety.  It was also very
probable that the increasing cold would send both sentries tramping
up and down, and in that lay a chance to escape into the heather
unseen.

But against these two probabilities was the stern fact that horses
need fodder, and that every minute brought the search for the tussock
of hay nearer.

Had Muckle John been the kind of man who, having exercised a maximum
of caution, takes a minimum of risk through a very proper spirit, he
would have made a run for it, and dodging the sentries' bullets,
trusted to the twilight to cover his flight.

But Muckle John had a certain pride in these episodes.  He liked to
complete a piece of work like this--to leave at his own good
pleasure; above all, not to give his enemies the empty satisfaction
of knowing just how he had managed it.  At that moment the sentry who
dozed dropped his musket, and, hastily picking it up, tramped heavily
up and down like his companion.  There was just a space of five
seconds exactly when both their heads were turned away from him.

Five times Muckle John tested it, leaving half a second for accidents
and the half-turns at the corners.

Then drawing himself clear of the hay, he waited, crouching on his
hands and knees.  At last with a spring, he cleared the danger-spot,
and was flat with the heather when the sentries turned again.

The next five seconds saw him thirty yards away, the next another
forty, and then he fell to running with bent back--a shadow among
shadows, until he was gathered into the darkness and was seen no more.


It was on the evening of the next day that Muckle John, travelling
all night and resting by day, reached Inverness, and, muffling up his
face, trod through the silent town and knocked at the door of Miss
Macpherson.  Inside all was utterly quiet, and for a moment he feared
that she had gone.

But very slowly the door opened, and a pair of keen eyes looked into
his face, while a nose like an eagle's beak was thrust forward as
though on the point of striking.

"Wha's there?" she cried.

"Mistress Macpherson," said Muckle John; "let me in, for I am spent,
and this is no the place to exchange pleasantries..."

"Pleasantries indeed," she snorted.  "Nothing was farther frae my
mind," but she let him in for all that, and bolted the door.

Then, raising the rush-light, she stared into his face.

"Oh!" she cried, "and I thought so.  Good evening, Mr. Muckle John,
though no sae muckle in spirit as when last we met."

"No, madam--ye say true," he replied frowning at the fire-light.

"Tell me," said she, "before we go farther--what of Rob, the
obstinate, dour body?"

Muckle John shifted his eyes.

"Maybe he's no been as fortunate as we could have wished," he said,
slowly shaking his head.

"Dinna clash words wi' me!" she screamed.  "Oot with it, ye Hieland
cateran--what o' Rob--where is he--is he in prison?"

"No, no," cried Muckle John, "though maybe no so far off, either."

The hawk eyes were now fixed fiercely on him.

"What did ye come here for?" she cried.  "What has kept your feet
hammering the road for hours past?  Was it just for the pleasure o' a
crack wi' me?  Oh, no, my man, there's a bonny tale behind your
face," and she sat herself down, her chin resting on her hand.

With a shrug Muckle John told of the flight from Culloden (saying
nothing of his part that day), and of the meeting on the shore of
Arkaig, and the taking of Rob.

"He is meddling in business that I canna control," he said finally,
"and so he's bound for Fort Augustus, and out of it he must come or
my name's no Muckle John."

"Which is probably true," sniffed Miss Macpherson, "and no sae
comforting as maybe ye intended."

He gloomed at her a moment without speaking.

"Mistress Macpherson," he said at last, "listen to me.  When Rob is
brought up in Fort Augustus, your friend Ephraim Macaulay, whose real
name is Captain Strange and a notorious spy, will seek to prove that
he was in arms at Culloden.  They must prove that, to put the fear of
death on him for reasons best left unsaid.  Who will know Rob better
than yersel', and who will come to the mind of Strange mair clearly?
Should he be asked to travel south, be prepared in advance, for it
rests wi' you whether Rob goes free or not."

"I always suspected yon Macaulay," remarked Miss Macpherson, "and his
Scots was no what I call sound Edinburgh."

"He has muckle strings to his bow, and who can say what arrow may
bring doon Rob?  But when the message comes, Mistress Macpherson,
dinna deny that ye ken Rob, for that will prove his guilt at once,
for ithers can be found who will jump at the chance o' pleasing
Strange.  Mak' a lot of him, and when ye say good-bye to him in his
cell, hand the man on guard a piece of siller, and shut the door.
There is one I ken in the fort will be glad to do me a favour, and he
will put Rob in one of the rooms overlooking the outer court."

"Go on, my man," said she; "I'm no slow in the uptak."

With a reddened face, Muckle John unloosened his jacket.

"Here," said he, "are one or two things that may serve our purpose,"
and he showed her a coil of slender rope, a file, a pistol, and a
skian-dhu.

"They're a bonny lot," said she, "but I'm no just catching their
connexion wi' mysel'."

"Mistress Macpherson," said Muckle John, growing still redder in the
face, "if ye could see your way to coiling this rope about your waist
and concealing the other things, I think Rob is as good as safe."

For long she sat silent.

"Sir," she said, "I believe you are an honest man, though I was
positive ye were a rogue until this very minute."

The face of Muckle John was, for once, a medley of expressions, with
that of irritation uppermost.

"I hope so," he replied shortly, "but I'm no perfect, ye ken."

"Why do ye want Rob out so much?  He is no kin o' yours?"

He uttered an exclamation of impatience.

"What matter," he cried irritably.  "Should I save his neck, is not
that enough?  Maybe I have an affection for the boy.  Maybe it is
because we are fellow-sufferers in the Cause."

"And maybe," broke in Miss Macpherson, "it is none of these good
reasons at all."

To which he answered nothing, but seemed on the point of bursting
into a violent rage, and then he fell back on silence, as though he
were bitterly offended.

"Mistress Macpherson," he said stiffly, "one thing I can swear to,
and that is that I mean Rob no ill; and this I promise you: that if
you do as I ask, I will answer for his ultimate escape and safety,"
and, whipping out his bared dirk, he prepared to take the oath.

"Whisht," said Miss Macpherson, "dinna behave like a play-actor; I'll
do what you want, and gladly, for his mither's sake, puir woman.  But
ye said there is an outer courtyard.  How will Rob manage to get over
that?"

"He will not need to do so," said Muckle John, and rose to his feet.

Footsteps suddenly sounded on the street without.  A loud knock came
at the door--then another, and the noise of a horse's impatient hoofs
thumped and clattered on the cobbles.

Like a vast shadow, Muckle John passed silently inside the other
room, while Miss Macpherson drew back the bolts.

In the street was a trooper, holding a package in his hand.

"For Mistress Macpherson," said he, "from Captain Strange, now
stationed at Fort Augustus," and, mounting again, he walked slowly up
the street.

Inside, she tore open the paper.  It requested her to travel to Fort
Augustus at dawn.

Muckle John read what it was at a glance.

Then, gathering up his coat, he bowed, and, meeting her eyes for a
moment, passed into the darkness of the street and was gone.




CHAPTER XII

IN THE HANDS OF THE DUKE

To Rob the world had suddenly fallen very hopeless and forlorn.  By
no conspiracy of Fate could matters have worked out more to his
undoing.  The precious paper entrusted to him by Dr. Cameron, full of
he knew not what vital news and directions regarding the hidden
treasure, had been stolen, but worse still by an unknown hand.  It is
comforting in a dreary way to know who has played the thief.  But Rob
had not even that poor satisfaction.

He had been taken asleep, and between that time and the journey to
Fort Augustus the paper had mysteriously vanished.  A horrible
thought presented itself.  Was it taken from him before he was bound
by the soldiers?  Muckle John had disappeared without a word or an
effort to save him.  He had half-heartedly hoped for a rescue on the
road, but no sign of living soul had met his eyes.

And at last, at sunset, they had reached the Fort, and he was
conducted to a guard-room and there left to his own thoughts.

Suddenly the door opened softly and the angular form of Captain
Strange slid into the room.  Rob started to his feet and waited in
silence for him to speak.

But that Strange seemed in no hurry to do.  Instead, he took to
walking slowly up and down the room with his hands coiled behind his
back and his chin sunk upon his chest.

Then, "Rob," said he, "what did I tell ye in Inverness?"

To which he received no reply.  Rob had the rare gift of silence.

"Did I no tell ye that a gibbet was like enough to watch your capers
before very long?  Maybe ye've no seen a man hanged by the neck, Rob.
It's no a bonny sight, say what you will; and in my way of thinking,
no a pleasant prospect for onybody, least of all for a lad of spirit
like yersel', Rob, for I'll no deny I admire your pluck," and he
breathed heavily and stared out of the window.

"Did you come to talk about hanging?" asked Rob, struggling to speak
with composure.

"In passing, Rob--merely in passing.  It is a subject that fascinates
me, I'll no deny.  Come here a minute; ye can see the hanging-tree
against the sky-line.  It's a rare poseetion, Rob--there'll be nane
will pass this way but will ask 'Who's dangling there?' and they'll
learn it was Rob Fraser, executed for meddling with what didna
concern him.  It's a braw fool ye'll look, then, Rob--no great rebel
dying for his principles, but just a silly laddie who ran a big risk
for other people's dirty profit."

"You can call it what you will," cried Rob, stung to anger, and
paused.

"Say your say, Rob; dinna be afraid," encouraged Strange softly.

Rob shut his lips seeing there was a trap being laid for him.

Perceiving that he would not speak, the other frowned a moment, then
with an appearance of kindly sympathy he patted him upon the shoulder.

"Forget my foolish havers," he said.  "I was only warning you for
your ain good, for it's a dangerous game you're playing, Rob, and a
game that you are playing in the dark.  Will ye hear me out and say
if what I'm telling ye is no true," and he drew a stool near to the
boy.

"Let me run over your movements for the last week or so," he went on.
"After Culloden--and ye mind I did my best to save ye that night in
Inverness--you came to Lovat's country, and thence down to Arkaig.
There you met Cameron and buried the gold.  There also you escaped
out of our hands, and I'll grant no so clumsily, though you were not
to blame for that.  Then, accompanied by the desperate man ye ken as
Muckle John, you made to the north and were captured yesterday in
Captain Campbell's camp.  Now, Rob, is that no the truth?"

"It is," said Rob, "though what you have to say against Muckle John
should be kept for his own ear.  It is wasted on mine."

"Brawly said, Rob, but what do ye ken o' this Muckle John?  However,
that can keep.  I'd wager ye'd turn white did ye ken who Muckle John
really is.  But when you left Cameron you had a paper, Rob.
Supposing that paper fell into our hands, Rob, or those of the Duke,
what would happen, think ye?  There would be no gold for your Prince,
and from the information in the letter--supposing there should be
any, which I am assured there is--there would be such a clearing of
Jacobites, including the Pretender, as would end their cause for
ever.  That is, I repeat, supposing such a paper fell into the hands
of the Duke.  But there are those, Rob, who are Scotch after all, and
no verra partial to such measures.  There are mony, Rob, who do nane
so badly oot of your Jacobite friends, and it's poor shooting where
there's no game," and he smiled very knowingly, baring his teeth like
a fox.

Rob was puzzled by the note of suggestion in his speech.  Had Strange
the map or not?  If not, had Muckle John taken it?  If Strange had it
what was to be gained by such words?  Would he not take it to the
Duke at once?

He glanced quickly at the man facing him.  In his eyes he read
avarice, cruelty, and cunning.

"If I hand you the paper," said Rob, "what do you propose to do?
Would you give it to the Duke?"

Strange checked a smile.

"That depends," said he, "for between ourselves, where the eagle
feeds there's poor pickings for the other birds.  The truth is, Rob,
there are some things you could tell me, and in return I'd do a deal
more for you, for I am no an ungenerous man, and it's a dreary
prospect, the gibbet."

"It is all that," rejoined Rob, "but I cannot promise until I hear
what you want to know."

"That's mair reasonable, Rob--I knew ye were not the foolish ninny
that they took ye for.  Now listen, Rob; if you will disclose the
hiding-place of Lovat and Archibald Cameron, and help us to lay
Muckle John by the heels--in return I will see that you are free this
very night, and mair, I will no forget ye when the treasure is come
to light o' day."

Rob turned sick at the words, but to learn more he simulated interest
and nodded his head doubtfully.

"But the Prince," said he.

"In return for Lovat I will spare the Prince."

"You?"

"Who else, for if you consent none but I will ever see the document
and its particulars."

"And you will keep the gold?"

Strange winked at that.

"We two, Rob," said he with a smile.

Then Rob, knowing all and realizing that Muckle John must have the
dispatch, rose to his feet.

"Whether I have been a scapegoat or not," he said, "I have only
myself to blame; and let me tell you at once, Captain Strange or
Macaulay, or whatever your dirty name may be, that nothing can save
me from the hangman's noose; neither you with all your promises nor
anything else, for I have not the paper you want," and he waited for
the storm to burst.

But the smile never died from the other's lips.

"Weel I know that, Rob," said he, "for I have it safe here," and he
drew the package, still sealed, from his coat pocket.

With a cry of rage Rob rushed at him, but the chains about his legs
tripped him up, and Strange, stepping aside with a snarl, took him by
the shoulder and flung him violently to the other end of the room.

"Down!" he cried, "or I will pistol you."  In a grim silence he
thrust the package back into his pocket.

"Ye see, I hold the cards," he said in a malignant voice.  "And now
is it to be a dislocated neck and your dead body the prey of
corbies--or the salvation of your Prince, a share in the gold, and
the taking of Lovat, which is inevitable in any case, and that of
Cameron, which is only a question of time?  Neither will suffer the
extreme penalty, for Lovat is an old man who has sat at home, and
Cameron is a doctor and was no at Culloden at all.  As for Muckle
John, I will tell ye why he made such a lot o' ye."

"No, no!" cried Rob.

"Whisht!  Dinna take on so.  Once a blind fool and never again,
surely.  But did ye think Muckle John risked his life just for love
o' ye, Rob?  Heaven preserve us--he was after..."

"I know," said Rob, "but say no more.  I'll tell the Duke you have
the paper and throw myself on his mercy."

Strange uttered a shrill cackle of laughter.

"Tell the Duke, Rob!  Oh, that's fine hearing.  Mercy!  It's little
mercy ye'll get frae him.  No, no!  I'll hand it him myself, thank
ye.  Perhaps ye thought I was like your Muckle John, and playing for
my ain hand.  You're uncommon green, Rob, but Jerry Strange is no
taken so doucely.  Jerry is honest as the day, Rob--so come along and
see me hand it into the Duke's royal fingers.  It'll mak' gran'
hearing, Rob, and there'll be sair confusion amongst the rebels now,"
and flinging open the door he drew his prisoner with him into the
passage.

Into a lofty room they went--the chains clanking about Rob's legs
very dismally.

A short, red-faced, stout young man of about twenty-five was sitting
at a table reading dispatches.  He was dressed in a red coat, with
stars upon his breast and much gold cord.  He wore a white peruke,
and had a choleric, somewhat peevish countenance and a hard blue eye.
There was nothing romantic or attractive in his commonplace features
or sturdy, clumsy figure.  His countenance displayed neither humour
nor kindliness, and certainly not beauty--but only determination,
courage, and common sense in abundance.  It would have been
difficult, indeed, to have laid hands on a young man so different in
every way from his rival Charles Edward.  It almost seemed that
Justice had given him victory to compensate him for the odium of his
personality.

"Vell, Strange," said he, speaking with a thick German accent, "what
is it?"

"Your Highness," replied Strange, "I have here a notorious rebel,
though young as ye see.  But he was carrying a package which
Archibald Cameron handed to him on the shores of Arkaig to deliver to
the Pretender.  I have reasons for believing, your Highness, that it
contains not only a plan of where the treasure be hid, but also the
place of concealment of the Prince and the movements of the Jacobites
still at liberty.  We have followed him according to our
instructions."

The Duke of Cumberland stared at Rob, then leapt to his feet.

"Goot, Strange," said he, smacking his lips audibly, "you are a
vonder.  You vill not be forgotten, my man," and he ripped open the
seal and unwrapped the paper.

Rob could see that there was more paper than he had thought.  But
what made his heart bound with sudden hope was the bewildered
expression upon the Duke's face.

"Is zis a joke, Strange?" he shouted, at last, flinging a sheaf of
papers upon the floor.  "Those," said he in a white heat of fury,
"are accounts of charges for drugs.  And zis," he added in a roar of
anger, holding a scrap with the tips of his fingers, "has ze
impertinence to say 'this is no ze goose that laid ze golden egg.'"

In the utter silence Rob laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.
And all the time Cumberland glared at Strange, and the latter stood
with an utterly vacant expression, as though he had opened his mouth
to say something and then clean forgotten what it was.

Suddenly the Duke turned with a scream of fury upon Rob.

"To-morrow," he cried, his face livid with passion, "ve vill see 'ow
you laugh on the gibbet," and he stormed on Strange to go, turning
his back upon them both.

But Rob did not move.

"On what charge am I condemned?" he asked.

The Duke switched round.

"Charge!" he cried, and then paused.  "Strange, what is the charge?"
he asked, stamping his foot.

"It was for carrying treasonable matter," replied Strange in a husky
voice; "but I suppose..."

"There was nothing against the throne in the package," broke in Rob.

"Strange," shouted the Duke, "am I to wrangle with a school boy?  Is
'e not a rebel?"

"He is, your Highness.  He was in arms at Culloden."

"Zen surely that is enough to 'ang any man."

"You have no witnesses," retorted Rob.

"Zen find vitnesses.  Himmel!--make vitnesses!" broke out the Duke,
seating himself again at the table.  "But go, Strange, before I
burst--and 'old--come back in half an hour.  I would talk with you
over this and other matters."

In his cell Rob could have wept for joy had he been given to that
sort of thing.  For he realized that though he had been the goose who
had drawn off the pursuit from Cameron, the Prince was safe, and that
the gold would yet be his.

In this elation of feeling he crossed slowly to the window.  The last
rays of the sun were falling upon the blank bars of the gibbet, at
which he felt his heart sink, for it was a cold and melancholy ending
to his ambitions and his life.

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour later a trooper clattered out of the courtyard
of Fort Augustus, bound for Inverness and Miss Macpherson; and in due
course Captain Strange knocked upon the door of the Duke's room and
entered.  In the intervening hour the latter had dined, and appeared
somewhat mollified in temper.

Indeed, there were those who said the Duke of Cumberland was genial
enough at heart, and though a hard man, one with a sense of justice
and honour.  He has had few kindly words and many harsh ones, and
there is a saying that there is good in every man.  As a German
prince he had no sympathy with the Jacobites.  To him they were
savage rebels speaking a barbarous language and wearing a barbarous
dress, about whom he knew nothing except the misrepresentations that
were current in England.

"Oh, Strange, Strange," he laughed, wiping his eyes with the back of
his hand, "who is ze goose now, and where are ze golden eggs?"

"Your Highness," said Strange flushing, "it is humiliating, I'll
allow, but I must tell you that I was mair than unfortunate, being
bound hand and foot by Cameron and no knowing just what had taken
place.  Cameron made good his escape, for my men were of his ain clan
and not anxious to bring dishonour on their name if another would do
as well.  That he foresaw, I'll be bound, and so he sent this boy at
a run with a package, and the presence o' Muckle John lent him
additional importance."

"Oh, vell," said the Duke, "but ve must bring the boy to his senses,
Strange.  Produce your vitnesses, and he'll show us things, I'll be
bound.  Vot does he know, Strange?  Can he tell us any ting?"

"He knows where Lovat is hid, your Highness, and ye ken what his
capture will mean.  It will show the rebels we have long arms."

"True--but vill he tell, Strange?"

"A week or two by himsel' will work wonders, your Highness, once he
knows we can hang him."

"And Muckle John?"

Strange bit his lip.

"Would I could have taken him," he said bitterly.

"Your chance vill come, Strange.  Ze net is closing.  Soon ve vill
'ave ze Pretender, and zen all ze smaller fry vill be caught too--"
he yawned and pushed back his chair--"I am sick to death of zis
country," he said; "it is always rain, rain, rain, and nosings to eat
or drink."

And so Strange left him looking gloomily out of the window upon the
black Highland hills.




CHAPTER XIII

MISS MACPHERSON COMES TO FORT AUGUSTUS

Dawn found Rob watching at the window.  Into the night his eyes had
stared until the cold wind before the grey light of day fell upon his
face.  Vast forms moved dimly into sight.  Hills stood up gradually
against the ashen sky.  Trees formed in vague, black columns, with
their trunks half hidden in mist.

Suddenly a faint, pink glow flushed the pearly grey with colour, and
in an instant the valley grew distinct.  The sun rose and sent the
dew glistening like a thousand twinkling diamonds, then, passing
higher, flooded the Fort with yellow light, and threw the black
shadow of the gallows-tree upon the ground.

With a sigh, Rob turned and seated himself upon his bed, waiting for
the end.

But hours passed and no one came.  He heard the sharp words of
command from the drilling-square below, and the grounding of arms as
the soldiers stood at attention.  Outside, a man whistled cheerfully,
and that reminded him of Muckle John.  Surely he would not desert
him!  Did he not pride himself on always finding a way?  Rob
remembered, with a wry smile, that the only way he had found two days
before had been for himself.  He took to wondering what Cameron would
say when he heard (if he should ever hear, which was not so likely)
how ill his joke had treated his messenger.  He took a doleful
satisfaction in imagining him greatly disturbed at having sent him to
his death.

At that moment footsteps sounded along the corridor, and the key of
the door was turned.

Into the room stepped Captain Strange.

"Poor Rob," he said with a grin, "you're like a ghost.  No used your
bed?  Come, come, I thought better of you than that.  Not afraid, are
you, Rob?"

"If I were afraid I would do what you want, but you will never have
that satisfaction."

"Never is a strong word, Rob.  I would not use that word to the Duke,
boy..."

"He can hang me, but it will be without a fair trial."

Strange leaned his arm upon the window ledge.

"Wrong again; there will be a fair trial, Rob," he said without
turning his head, "and that this very day.  It is more than many
another has had--and that's the truth."

"What can you prove against me?"

"I have a witness, Rob, who will tell us all about you.  What do you
say to that?"

"That you lie."

Strange switched about, and his face hardened.

"Come then," he cried angrily, and led the way from the room.

With a sudden foreboding of danger Rob rose, and the door clanged
behind him.  If, in a single night, they had found a witness his doom
was complete.  And yet, what witness could they have discovered?

Down to the great place where they had gone the preceding night
Strange took him.  Outside the door stood two soldiers with muskets.
Passing between them, the heavy door shut silently behind.  Facing
Rob sat the Duke of Cumberland, alone.

Hastily he looked round the room.  No other person, witness or
otherwise, was to be seen.

"Prisoner," rasped out the Duke, "are you villing to give us
informations regarding certain rebels?"

"I am not," said Rob.

"Zen vot prevents us from hanging you?"

"On what charge?"

"As a rebel."

"You know nothing against me," said Rob, gaining courage.

"But we 'ave a vitness who does," said the Duke.

Then rising, he opened a little door that lay behind his chair, and
stood to one side to let some one pass into the room.

And very slowly, her head in the air, came Miss Macpherson.  Rob felt
his heart give a great thump, and then he grew cold as ice, for he
knew, whether she wished to harm him or no, that his aunt was bound
to recognize him.

Strange advanced to meet her.

"Mistress Macpherson," he said, "you remember me?"

"Aye," she replied drily, "I know ye fine, though we met last in more
reputable circumstances."

"Alas!" he smiled, "duty is a hard master."

The Duke burst in at that.

"Madam," he cried, "ees zis boy known to you or nod?"

"Your Highness," she replied, looking Rob squarely in the eyes, "this
is my wretched nephew."

With a bitter look of mortification and fury, Rob turned his back on
them.

"Vas 'e in arms against ze throne?" asked the Duke.

"He was all that," she replied grimly, and Strange rubbed his hands
with joy.  This was beyond all expectation.

"But, madam," went on the Duke, "you know vot zis means."  He was
evidently puzzled by her equanimity.

"Thrawn necks are too common at present to be overlooked," she
replied drily.

He nodded, understanding her dimly.

"Zen dere is noding more to be said," he remarked, and said something
in Strange's ear, who touching Rob upon the shoulder led him away to
his cell, where he was left to his own dismal thoughts.

Returning, Strange begged Miss Macpherson to be seated, and again
whispered into the Duke's ear, who nodded from time to time, and
smiled sleepily.

"As you vill, Strange," he said, and rising, withdrew.

"Now, Miss Macpherson," began Strange when they were alone, "I knew I
could rely upon you to put even the claims of relationship aside,
when it was a question of loyalty."

"Go on, my man," said she impatiently; "I'm no here to listen to
patriotic sentiments."

"Exactly.  Now this is how the matter stands.  Rob is convicted as a
rebel, and there's only one solution to that.  We agreed from the
start that he was fated for a quick finish.  But he's young, Miss
Macpherson, and your own blood."

"No blood of mine," she said sharply.  "What my poor sister did is no
affair of mine."

"At any rate, it would not look well for you to have led to the lad's
death."

Miss Macpherson's lips tightened, but she said nothing.

"And there are ways and means.  All this fuss over a boy is not
according to reason, much less the Duke's usual procedure.  But Rob
knows some things that his Highness is ready to hear in exchange for
his life.  More than that, he will deal generously with him."

"What things?" asked Miss Macpherson, shortly.

"Where Lovat hides, for instance.  And, mark you, it will make no
difference in the end.  In a fortnight's time we shall drive the
upper end of Loch Arkaig, where we hear he is concealed.  But we are
not sure, and a word from Rob would help us.  That is hardly
treachery, Miss Macpherson, is it?"

"I never had a legal head," she replied, with an utterly
expressionless countenance.

Strange rose, and walked twice up and down the room.

"Persuade Rob to act reasonably," he went on, "and you will have his
ultimate gratitude, and, what is more, that of the Duke as well.
Will you help us?"

"I'll see Rob," she replied.

"Thank you..."

"But only on two conditions."

"Yes?"

"That I see him alone, and that he has a fair week to think it over."

Strange hesitated.

"Your first condition is, of course, simple," he replied, "but the
second is more difficult."  And he hurried from the room.

In a minute or two he returned,

"The Duke agrees," he said; "and now, please, follow me."

They passed through the corridor up the stairs.  Then, opening the
door of Rob's cell, Strange bowed her in, and, closing it, turned the
key.  Rob was lying face downwards upon the bed; he never lifted his
head as she entered, and so she paused and listened at the keyhole
until the footsteps had died away.

Then, "Rob," she called, and fell upon her knees by the bedside.

He raised his face and looked at her with sullen anger.

"What do you want with me?" he asked.

But for answer she placed her finger on her lips, and drew a file and
pistol from her pocket.

"Hide them," she whispered.  When he had done so, in a dream, and
turned his head, a coil of rope was lying on the ground, and his aunt
was rebuttoning her coat.

"Tak' it, Rob," she said.  "Wake up, lad."

Suddenly hope sprang to his eyes.  With a leap he was off the bed,
and the rope was below the hay upon which he lay.

"Oh, aunt," he said, "I did not understand."

"Tuts," she replied.  "Now, hark ye, Rob, for there's muckle to
grasp.  Yon Muckle John came to me last night, and sent me here with
the things ye have.  He also sent this letter," and she fumbled for a
moment in her pocket, and handed over a slip of paper to him.

"Read it by-and-by," she said, "but first listen here.  They will no
hang ye for a week--that's sure as death, and it's yon old Lovat that
they are after.  They will search upper Loch Arkaig in a fortnight,
but they would do it sooner were they to ken just what you know.
Belike, Rob, if ye told them ye would win free, and in the meantime
the word could reach Lovat to seek another place."

"No," said Rob, "that I could not do.  Suppose he were too ill to
escape, or the message strayed?"

"Then, Rob, there is Muckle John, and he has a way, he says, though I
canna believe in it mysel'.  But the letter from him will show you."

Rob drew the paper out, and read it in silence.  It ran:


"DEAR ROB,--When ye hear a whustle such as ye ken, do as I say.  File
through the bars of your window and your chains should you have any
and lower yoursel down into the outer yard where a cart with hay will
be lying.  When dawn breaks the cart will move out but it will not be
searched for reasons that I will not say.  Should ye have anything to
entrust to me in case of accident give it to Mistress Macpherson, who
is our good friend."--M.J.


It was the last sentence that sent the blood into Rob's cheeks.

"Do you know why Muckle John is so anxious regarding my safety?" he
asked his aunt.

"No," she replied with a troubled frown, "though I asked him."

"Did he reply?"

"Not he, but he was sair put about."

Rob went over to the window, and laid his head upon his arm.  A deep
despondency had suddenly fallen upon him.  That Muckle John was only
interested in the suppositious plan of the treasure seemed only too
apparent.  It was to obtain this that he schemed and planned.  His
own safety and life were trifles in comparison.  Enemies within and
enemies without, and all fashed about a plan that did not exist.

A sudden determination came to him.

Taking a pencil from his pocket, he took up Muckle John's letter,
tore off the part which contained the reference to the treasure and
wrote upon the back:

"This to tell you that what you seek has fallen into the hands of the
Duke."

Then folding it up, he handed it to his aunt.

"Give that to Muckle John," he said.

Miss Macpherson scrutinized his face closely.

"Rob," she asked, "ye will do what the letter tells ye?  This is no
enviable position for any Highland woman, Rob, and I took for granted
that no false pride would prevent you from making good your escape."

"I have not refused," he replied.

A look of relief sprang into her face.

"Then good-bye," she said with unusual warmth.

For a moment they stood hand in hand, and then she knocked upon the
locked door, and waited for Strange to come.

When it fell back, she passed from sight without a backward glance.

For long Rob paced up and down the room.

But of a sudden he stopped, and, uttering a sharp cry, rushed
half-way to the door.  For long he shouted, banging with his fists
upon the wood.  It was too late.

That Lovat would be discovered had suddenly forced itself upon him,
and that he would be regarded as his betrayer would naturally follow.
For now, through his own foolish pride, he had thrown away the only
chance of saving the old man, by rejecting the help of Muckle John.




CHAPTER XIV

MUCKLE JOHN SHOWS HIS HAND

Miss Macpherson, saying good-bye to Captain Strange, and acquainting
him of Rob's present obstinacy, but bidding him not to despair, took
her way through the porter's gates, and turned her horse's head
towards the north.  After travelling in a leisurely manner for some
six miles, she drew in her beast, and dismounting led him into a
small coppice upon the hill-side.

All around her lay the lifeless stretches of heather and grey crag.
Near her side gurgled a little stream passing through the trees and
down the vacant, wine-red moor.  Behind her the stark, open slope of
brae, around her the huddle of lonely hills, and no sound at all.

The softest noise, like the rustle of an autumn leaf, made her turn
her head.  Within a few feet of her, regarding her keenly, stood
Muckle John.  Where he had come from, and how he had come, she did
not attempt to guess.

"Well," said he, "and how's Mistress Macpherson the day?"

"Finely."

"And the little business?"

"Is completed."

"Good!" he said, and smiled with great good humour.

"I handed Rob your letter."

"And did he tak' my meaning?"

"He said I was to thank ye, and give ye this bit o' paper, which he
tore from your message."

His mouth tightened suddenly.  A slight frown wrinkled his brow, and
his eyes flickered quickly upon her, and then to the paper in her
hand.

Suddenly, as though a nameless fear had gripped him, he glowered at
her, and snatched the thing out of her fingers.  Then, turning his
back, he read it at a glance, and, flinging it upon the ground, burst
into a torrent of Gaelic, his face a deep scarlet with fury.  His
unruffled composure was gone.  In its place was the blazing Highland
temper.  Words poured from his lips, his eyes flashed with impotent
rage, his whole body trembled with passion.

"Are you ill, sir?" cried Miss Macpherson, fearing he had gone mad.

But he only snarled at her.  Then, swinging about, he began to stride
backwards and forwards between the trees, muttering in low tones, his
hands clenched, and his chin upon his chest.  After a dozen turns in
this fashion he seemed to recollect her presence and, halting a
little below her, he raised his gleaming eyes to hers.

"Madam," he said, in a trembling, harsh tone, "I would give all I
possess that you and your precious nephew had never seen the light of
day.  Oh--it is too much!"  He broke off, kicking savagely at a tuft
of grass.

"But, sir..." she broke in, for once considerably alarmed.

"Don't sir me!" raved Muckle John, snapping her up.  "But go, and let
me never see your face again!"

"But Rob?"

"The sly ninny!  The whey-faced, ungrateful gowk!  Let him go hang
for his ain dourness!  A pretty fool he has made o' me, madam; and no
man nor boy either shall live to fling that in my teeth."

With the strength of a sudden terror she caught him by the arm.

"What sort of talk is this?" she cried.  "Have I no done my share,
and sent Rob half-way to his death in order that you may snatch him
back?  Oh, I said you were no honest man!"

"Honest?" he snapped, with a bitter laugh.  "Oh, you're right enough
there.  Heaven preserve me frae being called 'honest,' I'm no
shopkeeper, madam."

"Ye were anxious enough about Rob's safety last night."

Muckle John ceased from glowering at the glen beneath them.

"The boy's safety go hang," he retorted.  "Did ye think I cared two
bawbees for that?"

"It has occurred to me that you promised," returned Miss Macpherson.

"Promised!  What are promises between you and me?"

"Then Rob is to be left to his fate?"

"No."

"What do you mean?"

Muckle John turned, and threw back his shoulders.

"You have yet to learn," he said stiffly, "that the oath of a
Highland gentleman can never be broken.  I swore on the dirk I would
bring him safe from prison, and that I will do."

Once more he seemed on the point of falling into another fit of fury;
but fought it down, and pointed instead to her horse.

"Go!" he cried.  "And not a word of this or I'll string you up to
your ain roof-tree, and no' so sorry to have the excuse."

"Mercy me!" murmured Miss Macpherson, and made for her beast.

Then, mounting, she sent him through the heather towards the track.

A hundred yards down the hill-side she looked back.  But the little
cluster of trees was empty of life.  Muckle John had vanished as
though he had never been.  With a sudden fear clutching at her heart,
she dug her heels into the horse's ribs, and broke into a disjointed
canter.

On the same morning that saw Miss Macpherson urging her mount towards
Inverness, in a cave upon a wild and desolate mountain-top three men
were seated playing a hand of cards.  They were all in the Highland
dress, and armed to the teeth--lean, swarthy men, burned by the sun
to a deep black-red--sitting silent as statues, eyes intent upon the
game.  Beside one of them lay a handful of gold coins.  Near the
mouth of the cave, lying on his stomach, was a boy of about fifteen,
watching the hill-side.

Suddenly he uttered a low word in Gaelic, and instantly but in the
same grave silence the men ended their play, and gathering up the
cards one slipped them into his sporran.

A moment later the mouth of the cave darkened and the huge form of
Muckle John filled the entrance.  He nodded to each of them as they
saluted him, and motioning them to be seated he lay for a long time
gnawing his lip and staring gloomily upon the ground.  They appeared
not unused to such behaviour for they drew together at the farthest
corner and the man with the cards in his sporran took them out again
and, dealing them round, the game went on as before.  An hour passed
and Muckle John had said no word--had made no sign.  Of a sudden,
however, a slow smile began to creep into his eyes and soften the
corners of his mouth.  A droll expression flitted across his face and
vanished.

Then, taking a piece of clean paper from his pocket, and a pencil, he
studied Rob's writing in a deep pause, and began to write in a close
imitation, as follows:


"This to tell you that the treasure is discovered, and that unless it
be put in a safe place, all will be lost.  The bearer of this letter
can be trusted.  Come to me at a place that this man will show you,
for the Prince is with me, and is in need of you and some gold.  ROB
FRASER."


This he addressed to Dr. Archibald Cameron in the Braes of Lochaber,
and turning towards the crouching circle in the corner, he called one
of them, Donald Grant by name, to him, and instructed him for some
time in a very earnest voice.

"Listen, Donald," he said, "and let there be no bungling, for I am
not minded to be soft-spoken if aught goes wrong.  In Lochaber there
lies a gentleman by name Archibald Cameron--a brother to Lochiel.  He
is skulking with Murray of Broughton.  I heard so much two days
since.  Hand him this paper and keep a slow tongue, but if he presses
you say you were sent by a laddie--a reddish, blue-eyed Fraser boy,
and that maybe he minds the words--'there's a muirfowl snared.'
Bring him with you and keep him under close guard until I come back.
But before you do that, give this second strip of tartan to John
Murray of Broughton, and bid him hand it to Lord Lovat as a warning
from one he kens well."

With these words he dismissed the man, who slid through the entrance
and set out at a slow indefatigable trot for the south.

In the same active, masterful manner he summoned the remainder of the
party and addressed them rapidly in Gaelic.

"Now," said he at last, "is all clear?  Evan Grant, who is in the
stables of Fort Augustus, will see that the cart is ready.  When the
confusion is at its height he will put in the horse.  You, Donald
Chisholm, will lead the horses below the rampart during the night and
mind they do not whinny at the dawn.  There I will join you at
cock-crow and a boy with me that will serve our purpose.  He is like
enough to another I ken of to hoodwink a pack of red-coats.  Should
aught go wrong make for the hills, and turn the beasts loose.  Should
they be deceived as I know they will, lead them into bog-land and
scatter.  You understand?"

They all nodded their heads.

"This day week then, for I have other work till then.  Now go--but
leave the lad there to watch the glen."

Silently they crawled out of the cave-mouth, and were lost among the
neighbouring rocks.

Then, wrapping himself in his great-coat, Muckle John took the reed
from his pocket and began to play a Skye song that the oarsmen sing
for keeping time.  But soon he tired of that and played an old
Highland lament that is as full of sorrow as the hollow of the hills
with snow.  He played it in a heart-breaking fashion with an eye upon
the boy in the cave-mouth, who was a Macpherson and easily moved.
And when he saw the tears coursing down his brown cheeks he could not
but gulp too, partly through sympathy but most of all because of his
own grand playing.


It was now the month of May, and still Rob lay in his cell.  During
the past ten days every source of refined torture had been applied to
break down his silence.  Starved, beaten, threatened, he maintained a
stony front, until Strange in despair had left him to himself for two
whole days.  It was on the morning of the third day that he returned,
and Rob saw by the elation in his eyes that something had happened.
He could only guess that it meant another disaster to the hunted
Jacobites.

"Up, you dog!" he cried; "and hear the news.  What has your silence
earned you, do you think?  It has made you a traitor, Master Rob
Fraser--a name that your clan will revile for all time.  Ho, ho, ho!
Think of that now--there's fame for ye!  I'd give twenty guineas to
hear what Lovat says when he learns that he was betrayed by..."

"Stop!" cried Rob, "why should he believe such a lie?"

"Because we shall have to break it to him.  Otherwise he might guess
who is really telling secrets, Rob, and that would spoil all."

With a mournful groan, the boy covered his face with his hands.

"Why do you not kill me now?" he asked in a hopeless voice.

"Kill you?" echoed Strange.  "Man alive, there'd be poor sense in
that!  It is just because we will not hang ye that people will know
just why.  No, no, Rob.  You'll live like a fighting-cock, whether ye
like it or no."

"It will take more than you to find Lord Lovat," broke out Rob.

Strange shook his head gleefully.

"Shall I whisper where he lies hid?" he said.  "There's an island at
the foot of Arkaig, called Moror--am I no right?" and he shook with
silent laughter.

At that the floor beneath Rob's feet seemed to dance up and down, and
a great despair made him deaf to all that Strange said--deaf to the
shutting of the door--to the brooding silence that settled once again
upon his solitude.

When he opened his eyes the sun was sinking, and he was alone.  The
bitterness of the situation stunned him utterly.  How could anyone
deny that he had turned informer, especially when the report went
round that it was to save his life.  He thought he had valued his
neck; but now he knew there were things infinitely worse than death.
What would he not give now to have lured on Muckle John, and so won
his freedom by pretending he had the plan?

And as he brooded deeply, out of the twilight, like a bird's note
dropping into silence, came the soft music of a chanter.  With a cry
he started to his feet and listened.

Again it reached him--a thin bar of wistful melody, the sign of
Muckle John.

Snatching up his bonnet he waved it out of the narrow window, and at
that the whistle sounded for the last time far away, and died on the
wind.  Muckle John was ready.  Hastily Rob took out the file and
pistol, and laid them upon the floor.  There was little chance that
anyone would visit him again that night.  He had eight hours before
him to file through the bars of his cell, and conceal himself, just
before the dawn, upon the cart of hay below.  His chains he had
already filed nearly through, concealing the marks with mud scraped
off the damp floor of his cell.

But in case of a surprise visit he left his chains on, and set upon
the rusty bars of the window, scraping and rasping until his fingers
began to peel and bleed, and his arms ached with weariness.  At
midnight one bar was filed through and laid inside the cell.  Weak
and dizzy with want of food and exercise, he was forced to rest for
half an hour, and then, crawling back, he attacked the cross-bar; and
two hours later he had cut it away, and the main part of the work was
done.  It took him only a few minutes to work himself loose of his
chains.

Then, uncoiling the rope, he tied one end to the fragment of iron bar
left in the window casement, and unwinding it softly he let it run
down the rough, grey wall.

All was very quiet and dark.  No sound reached him from below.  Far
away, on the outer guard, he caught the dull tramp of the sentry,
marching to and fro in the wintry darkness.

The time was ripe.  Slipping his pistol about his waist, Rob wormed
his way, legs first, through the open window, and coiling his feet
about the rope, he took a grip of it with his hands and began to
slide slowly downwards.

Down, down he went; past rooms where all was dark, skinning his knees
upon the sharp edges of stone, bumping and swaying, but nearing
ground at every yard, and with the breath of sweet night air upon his
cheek.

And so at last, without misadventure, he reached the inner courtyard,
and looked about for the cart of hay.

The dawn was not far distant now, and he crept about the place
feeling his way, seeing but dimly, and fearful that there was no cart
at all.

At last, however, some ten yards away, his hand touched a wheel.
With a gasp of relief he ran his fingers through soft wisps of hay
over his head.  Then climbing up, he wormed his way beneath a bundle
of horse-cloths, and waited for the morning.

The cart had apparently unloaded and was ready to leave the fort.
Fortunately for Rob the cloths were heavy, and the horses' nose-bags
and other articles made sufficient to entirely conceal his presence.
But how Muckle John could hope to avert suspicion falling on such an
obvious place of concealment, he could not imagine.

Very gradually the grey, flickering lights of another day glimmered
above the fort, and still there was no sound of alarm--no sign of
Muckle John.

Now the side of the fort where Rob's cell lay was not much frequented
until broad daylight, the sentry rarely coming so far along--an item
with which Muckle John was well acquainted.  Opposite this part the
hill sloped upwards towards broken country, commanding a clear view
from the walls.

It was not until seven o'clock, for the morning was dark and cold,
that a man passing through the inner courtyard to water the horses
saw the rope dangling down the wall, and with a frenzied shout
brought the sentry at a run towards him.

"Prisoner escaped!" yelled the fellow.

With an answering cry the sentry raced away.  A moment later a bugle
sounded the call to arms.  Clatter of muskets, hoarse voices,
commands, questions, running footsteps--all the characteristic
commotion of a sudden alarm--reached Rob in his hiding-place, and set
him wondering whether Muckle John had failed him, or whether he had
dreamed he heard the reed.

For his position was precarious.  He had escaped for the time; but he
was like a rat in a trap--able neither to go backwards nor forwards.

The voice of Strange interrupted his anxious thoughts.

"Guard the gates!" he ordered.  "Come with me, you men, and search
the cell."  Up the stairs they stamped and their footsteps died away.

Rob imagined them tearing up the stone steps to his cell.  He could
almost see Strange peering through the window with its filed bars.

Suddenly he heard him shout from far above him as though his head
were thrust out of the window:

"There he is!  There he is!"  It sent a shiver through his limbs.

But no one approached the cart.

Instead, the excitement grew even more intense, and the courtyard
about the cart became thronged with hurrying soldiers.  On the outer
walls he heard muskets firing, and cries of "There they go!" as
though they aimed at men upon the hill.  It was all very baffling and
mysterious.

Was Muckle John attempting a rescue by force of arms?  Rob lay very
still, and then his perplexity was set at ease, for he heard a voice
he knew well call from a window some twenty feet above him:

"Vot is it, Strange?" and Strange, despite his hurry replied:

"The prisoner, Rob Fraser, your Highness, is riding away up the hill
with another man."

"Then after 'im, Strange!" roared the Duke.  "Ten pounds to the man
who catches 'im.  Open the gates; I vill take 'orse myself!"

With a rattle the gates rolled back.  The soldiers galloped through,
Strange at their head.  A few moments later and troopers were
spurring up the hill-side--the whole fort was deserted for such a
steeplechase.  Ten pounds seemed within the grasp of many that day.

The last trooper had hardly dashed away before a man came quickly
across the courtyard leading a heavy horse.  With swift hands he
hitched it to the wagon, and, swinging himself up on the side with
his feet upon Rob, he started towards the gates.

A solitary soldier challenged him with a broad grin.

"No rebels in that cart?" he said, peeping over the top.

The man in the cart laughed heartily.

"He was more than a match for you," he replied.

"That 'e was," agreed the soldier.  "But 'ow anyone can get out of
this fort beats me.  Somebody will look foolish over this."

"Be glad it is not you," returned the man in the cart.

"Me?" cried the other, for they were now twenty yards down the road.
"There'd be few rebels lost if I had a word in it."

"I can see that," shouted back the man in the cart.

And so they passed along the moorside, and out of sight of the fort.

Half an hour later they encountered the soldiers returning.

"Not got him?" asked the man in the cart.

A sergeant stopped while the rest of them trudged on.

"No; they left their horses and took to the crags."

"Where are the dragoons?"

"Led into a bog, and still there."

Then, shaking his head, the soldier marched after his company.

Long after Rob threw back the rugs, and sitting up blinked in the
sunlight.

"Well, Rob," said the man in the cart, but with little warmth of
manner.

It was Muckle John!




CHAPTER XV

"A MUIRFOWL SNARED"

Now the man that Muckle John had sent speeding from the cave-mouth to
the south reached northern Lochaber, and halting in a place under a
rock, waited for the dawn.

Very slowly the wintry night began to grow more grey.  A cold wind
fluttered the beard of the watcher under the rock.  From the bleak
hill-side a dog-fox barked, and with the passing of night a stag
moved like a shadow up the brae and stood for a moment gazing
backward, silhouetted against the skyline.

And still the man waited, watching the track below him.  It must have
been about seven o'clock, and the sun barely risen, when down the
glen came two men walking very rapidly and saying no word to one
another.  Foremost came a short, strongly built man with a round,
genial countenance and shrewd blue eyes.  About four paces behind
again there limped and tottered a broken cadaverous figure, heavily
cloaked and yet coughing dismally in the bleak Highland air, and
leaning his weight upon a stick.

All the way down the glen they never exchanged a word; but once the
man who led the way halted, and drawing a flask from his pocket
handed it to his companion, who tilted it up and then broke into a
worse fit of coughing than before.

The messenger of Muckle John snug under the crag took them in with
one long, penetrating glance, but no expression of surprise or
triumph or relief crossed his face.  He regarded them, as he had
regarded the stag, with cold, inscrutable eyes.

Through the hanging mists they came, and when they had drawn level
with his place of concealment he uttered a forlorn cry--such as the
whaup sends falling over an empty moor.  Instantly the little man who
walked in front stopped in his stride, and sent his eyes sweeping the
skyline above his head.  But no whaup was there.  Then turning he
said a word to his companion, who only shook his head wearily, as
though all the whaups in Scotland might have cried themselves hoarse
for all he cared.

Presently the man under the rock whistled very softly.

"I hear ye, sir," said the short fellow, speaking in Gaelic but never
raising his head; "and who might ye be there, like a fox in his
earth?"

"It is Archibald Cameron I want," replied the messenger of Muckle
John.

At that the tall, cadaverous man seemed to bestir himself, and began
to speak in a low anxious tone to his companion, who cut him short,
however, with scant courtesy.

"What is it you want?" he cried, turning his head towards the hill.
"I am Archibald Cameron, and now your name, sir, and your business?"

"Will ye come up, Dr. Cameron?  You will find me beneath the round
rock ten paces from the burn."

"Come," said Cameron to the man with him; "there's maybe news of the
Prince."

"No news," sighed the other, "is better than bad news."

Then taking to the hill-side they reached the hidden place and crept
within.

It was a hole of about six feet by eight and three feet high, and
with the sickly smell of a fox's lair.

"A couthy bit corner," said Cameron to his companion, dropping into
broad Scots.  "What wad we do, Broughton, had we no siclike places as
this?"  Saying which he yawned and eyed the other mischievously.
"Man," he said, with twinkling eyes, "ye'd mak' a bonny scarecrow."

"Oh, have done!" broke out Murray of Broughton (for he it was) in a
shrill, peevish voice.  "What good can such filthy nooks and crannies
avail us?  I am like to die," he wailed on, and started coughing,
with his hands clutching his sides.  Already the Prince's secretary,
broken in health, haunted by the constant fear that the Chevalier
whom he loved sincerely was taken, oppressed also by his own danger,
was coming nearer day by day to his disgrace, driven onward by the
weakness of body and mind which may make of any man a coward in the
face of death.

His face was drawn with sickness and anxiety.  In his pale haunted
eyes there flickered a sleepless dread.  Murray had all the loyalty,
but none of the reckless temerity of the true adventurer.

Meanwhile Cameron had taken tobacco from his pocket.

"A pipe," he said, "I must have, though all the Elector's red-coats
were to sit around this spot and sniff the dear smell into their red
faces."

Then blowing a cloud of smoke which sent poor Murray into a fit of
coughing, he turned abruptly upon the messenger of Muckle John,
saying in Gaelic:

"Do you understand Scots?  For our friend here, whose name you are
probably well acquainted with, has no Gaelic, poor creature!"

The man nodded.

"What is your name?" asked Cameron.

"My name is Donald Grant, and I am from Glenmoriston," said the other.

"A Grant," sniffed Cameron; "well, well, we canna all be Camerons."

He drew up his legs and sat with his elbows on his knees.

"What is your news?" he asked.  "Is it of the Prince?"

"Partly--and partly not."

"That's a braw answer," snapped Cameron.  "It's unco like maybe, and
maybe no.  Ye're muckle confidential, you Grants."

"I have a letter," said he, "from one well known to ye--Rob Fraser."

"Rob Fraser!  I ken nane o' that name.  Oh, bide a wee!  Ye mean a
laddie?"

Grant nodded.

"That same," he replied.

Cameron drew in a cloud of tobacco and sent it floating in rings
above his head.

"Yon's a bonny one," he murmured, and then, cocking an eye upon the
other.  "Where's the letter?"

Grant drew it carefully from his stocking.

Cameron read:


"This to tell you that the treasure is discovered, and that unless it
be put in a safe place all will be lost.  The bearer of this letter
can be trusted.  Come to me at a place that this man will show you,
for the Prince is with me, and is in need of you and some gold.  ROB
FRASER."


"Humph!" grunted Cameron.  Then he took to reading it again, weighing
every word.  Once he stared for a very long time at the messenger,
but the followers of Muckle John were chosen carefully.  The
expression of Grant's bearded face displayed no emotion whatever.

Presently, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, he pursed his lips,
and handing the letter to Murray, frowned and pulled at one ear,
humming and keeping time with his foot--the very picture of a man
wanting to go all ways at one and the same time.

"It looks genuine enough," he said grudgingly in Murray's ear, "but
I've no knowledge of the laddie's writing."

"Who is Rob Fraser?" asked Murray with shut eyes.

"I had near forgot myself; but he was useful that night on the shore
of Arkaig.  Maybe ye tak' my meaning?"  Saying which he winked and
looked meaningly at the other.

"Then what does he ken of where the stuff lies?" whispered Murray.

"About as much as the trout in the burn, which maybe is none so
little after all."  And again he winked and laughed.

"Will ye go, Archie?"

"I canna just say.  It looks uncommon like a trap, and yet..."  He
broke off suddenly and addressed the man Grant.

"What is this boy like?" he asked sharply.

"He is short and open-faced, and is dressed in the Fraser tartan.  He
is dark and speaks good Gaelic."

"That's Rob sure enough.  Where has he been since he left Lochaber?"

"He was captured and laid in Fort Augustus, but he has escaped and is
now Glenmoriston way."

"Glenmoriston is a far cry," said Cameron.  "Did he send no word
beside this?"

"He said, 'There's a muirfowl snared,' though I did not take his
meaning."

"He said that?" said Cameron in a sharp voice.  Then turning to
Murray he grasped his arm.  "Ye hear that?" he cried.  "It's Rob
right enough, and the Prince with him."  He snatched up the letter
again.  "Gold," he repeated, and back came the frown.  "No," he said
under his breath, "I'll take no gold.  I seem to scent treachery in
the word gold.  What need has the Prince with such?  It's something
mair substantial he'll require.  Murray," he broke off, "how much
have ye upon you?"

"A hundred louis d'or--nae mair," said he.  "But tak' it,
Archie--only leave me ten for my ain needs."

The coins again changed hands and Cameron again addressed Grant.

"What other news do ye bring?" he asked.

"There is word," Grant replied, "that the soldiers are moving south."

He took to rummaging again in his shirt and drew out a piece of
tartan--a tangled, stained fragment about the size of a man's hand.

"One who shall be nameless," said he, "has ordered me to give this to
Murray of Broughton, begging him to put it into Lovat's own hands."

"It is a warning," gasped Cameron, "he says they are moving south."

Murray showed no relish for the business.

"I have no wish to speak with Lovat," he replied, "I am the last man
from whom he would take such a message."

"Tuts, Broughton," said Cameron impatiently, "at a time like this
private misunderstandings are out of the question--ye may save him
from the scaffold."

"I would," retorted Murray sourly, "I could bring him to it.  But
give me the rubbish, I'll see he receives it, though it's poor thanks
I'll get."

"You misjudge him, man--he's dour but he's old.  This man here has
brought it from the Prince belike, who else?" he swung round on the
messenger of Muckle John, "you are a Jacobite I take it?" he asked.

The man shook his head.

"I am a Jacobite where my ain race are concerned," he replied, at
which Cameron regarded him gravely, and seemed somewhat suspicious
and uncertain what to make of him.

Then turning to Murray he drew him outside the place, and they lay
about a dozen paces distant amongst the heather.

"Ye ken what this means, Murray?" he said.  "There's some one must
warn Lovat.  It's the Prince has sent word--leastways, ye can tell
Lovat so, it will hearten the old man.  Should he be taken the
Highlands will lose heart.  Get him carried by night Badenoch way.
Could he win to Cluny's cage he would be as snug as a rat in a
hole--and no sic a bad simile, eh?"

"I'll go," said Murray, staring with tired eyes across the glen.

"I'm no taken with this fellow here," went on Cameron, looking over
his shoulder, "and yet what more can I want?  He carries the daft
words I gave to Rob just to impress him, and send him like a hare out
of Arkaig--he warns us for Lovat.  Oh, John, what can ye mak' o' it?"

For a long time the other continued to stare into empty space.  Then
turning his head slowly he let his tragic eyes rest on Cameron.

"I know he is no true man," he said, sombrely, "but how I know I
cannot tell you.  And yet he is no Government man--that I am sure.
So I give it up!"  His tone dropped into silence, and sighing heavily
he drew in his breath to cough.

"Then I will go," said Cameron abruptly.  "Good-bye, John; keep watch
for a French ship and send word when it shall come."

So shaking hands they parted without another word, never to meet
again.

The sun was up and the glen lay clear and lifeless when Cameron and
Grant began their weary journey northwards.  The last they saw of
Murray was his stooping form crawling over the brow of the hill
opposite, leaning heavily upon his stick, like a wounded crow limping
with broken wings.


After the futile scheme for the continuation of the war--which as all
the world knows resulted in only a few hundred men (no Frasers)
assembling--all further resistance was at an end, and Lord Lovat, who
throughout had no intention of giving any personal demonstration of
disloyalty, returned to his island in Loch Morar.

On a spring day late in May when the countryside was bright with the
promise of flowers and the birds sang upon every tree, Murray of
Broughton visited him, and inside the hut where he lay waiting for
news of a French ship, handed him the fateful scrap of tartan--the
second warning of Muckle John.

Lovat was lying upon the floor with his back against that same strong
box that Rob had carried from Gortuleg House, unshaven and
dishevelled with privation and distress, and none too glad to see his
visitor.

At the four sides of the island a Fraser was on guard watching the
shore--a dozen more sat around the hut, while on the surrounding
hills about Morar there were others spying the glens below, intent on
the chance approach of the soldiers.

Lovat, who flattered himself he could guess any man's errand, greeted
Murray distantly and waved him to a stool.  He took a pinch of snuff
himself, but seemed in no mind to show a like hospitality to his
guest.

"I thought you were in France by now," he said at last.  "It were
best for us all if you could steer clear of the Government."

"I do not take your lordship's meaning," answered Murray flushing.
"I, at any rate, have had no dealings with the Government."

"But that same Government would like fine to have some dealings with
you, my man, and supposing they had, supposing they had..."

He looked at him keenly, then laid one finger against another in a
manner very typical.

"It was a wicked business," he said, "and had I not moments of dotage
I would never have even seemed to have sympathized with it, Murray.
But what could an old man do?  I had no power--no influence--I was
deserted by the Lord-President, a man I trusted like a brother.  It
was a cruel attack on the crown, Murray, and well ye ken it.  What
men can do to rectify the wrong we should do, even if it goes against
the grain."

Murray listened at first without much comprehension, then with a
quickening suspicion of treachery in the air.  He realized that Lovat
was ready as ever to turn his coat.

"No, no," he cried, "I am not here for that."

Lovat, who had never imagined he was there for any other purpose,
regarded him with his customary contempt.

"Then you are a greater fool," he rasped, "than even I took ye for.
What have you to gain by your silence?  This is the last rising for
the Stuarts.  There will be nothing now but the English and the
English tongue.  It makes me sick to see a man crying out against
what must be."

Murray shook his head and rose to his feet.

"I have come," he said simply, "at some inconvenience to myself, to
do you a service.  Here is a token that I doubt not ye ken well and
so I wish you good-bye," and handing Lovat the piece of tartan he
prepared to leave.  But with a strange hoarse cry the old man
struggled to his feet.  He was beside himself with rage.

Murray, too amazed to move, hesitated in the doorway, and catching up
a stick Lovat struck him down before he could raise an arm to defend
himself, or avert the blows.  Indeed, he lay as though stunned with
horror or too broken in body to protect himself.

There was a noise of footsteps outside and a dozen men prevented the
Fraser from injuring him further, and after a while he rose and
leaving the hut reached his boat.  His face was white as death, but
in his eyes, hollow with fever and privation, there gleamed like a
secret fire such a mad hate and anger that the boatman pulling him
out upon the silent loch watched him narrowly until they reached the
shore.  For a minute or two he did not move, but still crouched with
his eyes upon the way they had come, then groping with his hands
until he reached the beach, paid them without question, and saying no
word passed up the shore and out of their sight--a man long since
broken in health for the cause and full of bitterness of heart, but
now fired with an undying personal hatred.




CHAPTER XVI

THE CAVE IN GLENMORISTON

"Muckle John," said Rob, as the cart came to a standstill, and his
companion had kept a tight mouth for a full half-hour after his last
curt words, "Muckle John, why did you rescue me?"

"Why indeed?" he replied dourly enough.

Acting on a sudden impulse Rob leapt over the side of the cart upon
the bank of grass beside it, and began to walk in the direction they
had come.

"Where are you going?" cried Muckle John, startled for once.

Rob paused and spoke over his shoulder.

"I'm not the one to take favours from you nor any one," he said.  "I
know fine why you wanted to keep me safe; and now that you've lost
the thing you sought I'm no more to you than a peewit's egg."  With
that he set off again towards Fort Augustus.

"Stop, Rob!" shouted Muckle John.  "What's taken ye?" and flinging
his legs over the side of the cart, he began to run in pursuit.

"Rob!" he cried again, and came up with him.

"Well?"

"What has come over ye?" he asked.

"Would ye hang yersel' just to spite me?  What's done is done, Rob;
and I'm no perhaps the saint ye took me for.  But save ye I will, and
that's the naked truth."

"Let me pass!" cried Rob, and took a step to the right of him.

"Very good," he replied grimly, "but come ye will," and catching him
into his huge arms, he flung him suddenly upon the ground and bound
his wrists.  Struggle as Rob would it availed him less than nothing,
and so at last, with hands tied together and a dirk-point in his
ribs, he must needs march in the direction Muckle John wished.

For a full hour they trudged on thus, leaving the cart to care for
itself.

Then at last he spoke.

"Stop!" he said, holding out his wrists.  "I have had enough of this."

"Brawly spoken!" said Muckle John, and he cut the thongs.

"Where," asked Rob, "are you taking me, for I have important business
in the south?"

"What might that be?"

"It is the warning of Lord Lovat."

"It is done already; I have sent a man two days since."

"Am I, then, your prisoner?"

His captor broke into a laugh.

"Just a visitor, Rob," he replied, "and nothing more."

In this manner they travelled northwards, passing through wild,
desolate glens and black ravines, scaling rugged hills, seeing few
upon the road, and more in the heather.  Several times in the night
they saw the camp-fires of the English, but Muckle John seemed as
familiar with the country even in black darkness.  During the day
they lay close hid in some cranny of the rocks, or skulked upon the
crest of a hill, watching the surrounding district for sight of
moving troops.

It was nearing nightfall two days after Rob's escape from Fort
Augustus when they entered a small, precipitous glen, shut in by
lowering, ragged crags, while through its tortuous course a burn was
drumming in a melancholy undertone.  No drearier spot had ever met
Rob's eye.  Deserted even by the eagles, it might have been a
habitation of the dead.

Now at the side of the burn a shattered pine tree was standing
against the evening sky, and as such gruesome thoughts passed through
Rob's mind he raised his eyes, and a cry came and died unuttered on
his lips.  For on a solitary branch about the height of a tall man
from the heather, a human head was stuck with the hair still
fluttering in the breeze; while underneath dangled the faded uniform
of an English soldier.

"Look!" cried Rob.

But Muckle John only nodded absently.

"They're as common as berries hereabouts," he replied.

"Hereabouts?" repeated Rob.  "Then whose land is this?"

For answer Muckle John sprang upon a rock and with his hands hollowed
about his mouth, sent a clear, penetrating call.  From up the
hillside a reply came swift as an echo.

"Some call it," he said, "the country of Muckle John."

Before Rob could reply several Highlanders came running down the
hill-side, and greeted his companion with every sign of respect and
pleasure, all of which he took very naturally.

Then passing onward they came to a narrow defile with a man on guard
at the entrance, and continuing their way, reached the opening to a
cave.

In the sheltered ground which lay before the cave three men were
engaged around a fire, and the smell of cooking drifted in a cloud
about their stooping forms.

"Rob," said Muckle John, making way for him to pass, "will you step
inside, for if I am not mistaken there is one who will be pleased to
see ye."

Without a word, but anxious to know to whom Muckle John could refer,
Rob entered the cave.  For a moment the darkness of the place made
him think he was alone.  Then of a sudden he made out the form of a
man lying upon the floor; and with a quick fear he knelt down and
recognized Archibald Cameron, bound hand and foot.

It took Rob but a couple of slashes with his skian dhu and Cameron
was free of his bonds.

Sitting up he groaned and surveyed Rob with a whimsical smile.

"This is a queer manner of hospitality," said he.  "If ye had
mentioned the name o' the gentleman you were serving I would have
taken the hint kindly."

"I serving?" broke in Rob, "I do not understand."

Cameron shrugged his shoulders cynically.

"Maybe ye do not remember the letter," he said very politely, "maybe
ye are not Rob Fraser?"

"Dr. Cameron," replied Rob, "this is no time for quarrelling.  I know
of no letter, and I am a prisoner like yourself.  We are both in the
hands of Muckle John."

"Muckle John!  So that's how the wind blows, eh?  Oh, I begin to see.
Poor Rob, you're aye the scapegoat.  Muckle John, indeed!"

"You know of him?"

Cameron snorted.

"Wha does not?" said he, "there's few between here and Rome has not
heard tell of Muckle John."

"Then is he Hanoverian?"

"He's mair like a kite that hovers above the squabbles of other folk."

"Then what does he want with us?"

"Money."

"It's little of that I have."

"You, Rob?  Oh no!"  And he smiled in a way as though the idea
tickled him.

Very greatly puzzled, Rob fell back on silence, and presently Muckle
John himself entered the place.

He was in Highland dress and made a great appearance of surprise at
seeing Cameron, which ill accorded with the reception that
unfortunate gentleman gave him.  Then turning, he clapped Rob upon
the shoulder and bade them both be seated.

"It's poor hospitality," said he in Gaelic; "but these are sad times,
Dr. Cameron.  Old campaigners like us know there's thin rations when
one takes to the heather."

"Come, sir," replied Cameron, still standing and replying in Scots,
"what is it you want?  I ken ye fine, and well ye know it.  It is not
for the pleasure of my company that your cutthroats brought me here.
But I warn you there will be a reckoning for this.  There will be a
bonny ending for you, sir, when it is known in Lochaber."

"Lochaber," sneered Muckle John.  "While there is a guineapiece
buried in Lochaber neither you nor the Prince himself would raise a
Cameron to his side."

"Braw words for a nameless man," cried Cameron bitterly, but very red
about the neck.  "Hark, Rob, for maybe ye will never hear the like
again."

"I am no nameless man!" roared Muckle John; "and well ye know it."

Cameron smiled quietly to himself.

"Then the greater the smirch on your clan--though I'm no just
remembering the tartan," he said.

At that Muckle John, flinging back his stool, leaped to his feet, and
called out a name which no man Lochaber way can hear in silence.

For an instant, indeed, Cameron seemed on the point of springing upon
him; then restraining himself with an effort, he spoke in a very
polite tone:

"You will perceive," said he, "I have no sword."

But now that the thing was said Muckle John appeared greatly put
about and anxious to smooth it over.  He shrugged his shoulders and
fiddled with the brooch upon his plaid.

"Tuts, Dr. Cameron!" he said.  "I spoke over warmly."

But Cameron only frowned and shook his head.

"I have no sword," he said again.

There was no mistaking his meaning.  With a shrug Muckle John turned
and left the cave.

"Do not fight him, doctor," broke in Rob.  "It is sheer madness.  Oh,
how could ye fall into such a trap?  It is to kill you he led you on."

"Rob," replied Cameron, "you are too young to understand the ways of
a Highland gentleman."

"But surely you are more service to the Prince..."

"Whisht, boy!  Dinna haver.  Ye heard what word he used.  A man's
name means mair than a whole clan of Princes."

After that there was nothing more to be said.

The doorway darkened again and Muckle John entered with two claymores
and targes.

"It is lighter outside, Dr. Cameron," he said, as though they were
about to discuss a friendly bout together.

"As you will," replied Cameron with equanimity, and bowed to him to
take the lead.  But Muckle John bowed still lower, and with his head
cocked very high Cameron passed through.

A level place of about ten feet square lay before the cave, and
clustered on a ledge above sprawled and sat some dozen ragged
Highlanders, who evinced no sort of interest whatever in the
impending encounter.

Cameron swung his blade once or twice and tested the steel upon the
ground.  The targe he threw aside.  Then taking off their coats they
rolled up their sleeves, and saluted each other.  Seeing that the
thing was past mending, Rob took his seat very sadly upon a mound and
wondered how it would all end.  The grey, desolate sky, the silence
of utter solitude, the cluster of dirty, unmoved Highlanders, and
above and upon them all the smirr of thin hill rain, made his heart
sink like lead.

And in the weary greyness of it all, two men about to fight to the
death over a hasty word.  It was a situation typically Highland.

Cameron, as sturdy a figure as one could wish to see, was standing on
guard right foot foremost, his left arm behind his back.

Muckle John was facing him, his long hair loose about his neck, his
vast forearms bared, perfectly motionless, a figure of colossal
strength.

Suddenly there was a faint scuffle and footsteps in the entrance way.

"Dr. Cameron--Dr. Cameron!" said a low voice, with the round softness
of a foreign accent.

They all looked towards the narrow passage which led from the valley
below, and Rob sprang to his feet at the sight.  For standing there,
dressed in faded, tattered clothes, thin and harassed, but with a
smile upon his lips, was Prince Charlie.




CHAPTER XVII

THE HOLDING OF THE PASS

He was very different to the gallant figure of Inverness and
Edinburgh days.  Weeks of wandering in the wildest Highland country
had brought out his finest, most admirable qualities.  Hardship, that
strange test of man, had made him far dearer and more romantic than
he had ever been before.  There was no jealousy of Irish favourites
now--no dread of English influence when St. James's should be
reached--all that was gone never to return.  There was instead a
Prince in a tattered kilt, and a dirty shirt, bare-footed and with a
gun in his hand, a pistol and dirk by his side--a man just like
themselves and thrown by the harshness of destiny upon their loyalty
and succour.

Here was a Prince indeed, one who could march and shoot and have a
merry word at the end of the day.  Had they known what was in him a
year before, who can say but the Highlands would have risen to a man.

To Rob he was wonderful, just because he was human and in distress.
Even to Muckle John, strange medley of contradictions as he was,
there was present in the harassed figure in the opening to the cave
an emotional appeal like the lilt of an old song.  Some day he knew
he would compose a melody for his beloved chanter.  The very notion
of it brought a lump to his throat.

Meanwhile the Prince had looked them all over with his keen frank
eyes.

"Gentlemen," he said in an utterly exhausted voice, "I crave your
pardon for interrupting your sport; but I am, as you see, a fugitive
and hard pressed.  It is good to come upon you, Dr. Cameron, so
unexpectedly, for I have sore need of your guidance at this time."

Then, turning to Muckle John, he looked him up and down.

"I seem to remember your face, sir," he said.  "If this is your
country, may I claim the rights of Highland hospitality?"

"Your Highness..." broke out Cameron.  But he shook his head at him.

"No Prince to-day," he said, "but only a hunted man, with more
thought for his next meal than the Crown of England itself."

With a start Muckle John came forward and knelt at his feet.

"Your Highness," said he, "I hold this country by right of my
claymore, and the guns of these men of mine; what my name is, is
neither here nor there, and what my manner of life is ye can maybe
guess, and why these two gentlemen are here ye will learn from their
ain lips.  But it will never be said I took advantage of any man's
distress, least of all the sad plight of your Royal Highness."

Cameron, who had been fidgeting during these remarks, broke in
hurriedly with a very red face.

"I cannot imagine to what you refer, sir," he said, eyeing Muckle
John.  "No one has anything to learn from Rob and me regarding one
who is as true to the Prince as you, sir."

"Sir," returned Muckle John bowing to him gravely, "you will not find
me forgetful of such words."

Before any one could say further the Prince interrupted them, and
thanked Muckle John in a broken voice.  Then, taking Cameron aside,
he asked him how soon they could win their way to Badenoch, where he
was to meet Cluny Macpherson, and to hear news of the French ships.

Cameron was about to reply, when a shout from somewhere down the glen
made them both halt and look towards the watchful figure of Muckle
John.

Something seemed to have turned his body to stone.  Rob, who was
nearest to him, stepped quickly to the spy-hole commanding the
valley, and stared down the rocky slope.

For a moment he detected nothing; then, with a gasp of horror, he
observed tiny blots of red running like ants among the rocks, coming
ever nearer--red-coats following upon the trail.

A hand touched him upon the shoulder.

"Not a word of this to the Prince," whispered Muckle John, "but do as
I bid."  And he led him a little away.

"Now, Rob," he said, "let what happened in the past have the go-by,
and dinna think ower hardly of Muckle John.  I liked ye fine, Rob,
and when you wrote that letter from the fort I could have cried at
the daft spirit of it.  Well, Rob, there's the English, and here are
we; and some one must hold this pass if the Prince is to win through."

"But cannot we run for it?"

"He is too tired for that, Rob, and in the open country we should be
shot down like hares.  Now, away with ye all, and take Grant here to
guide you.  Make for the south, and dinna stop putting leg to earth
for an hour.  After that I can promise no more."  Turning aside he
beckoned to his men, and placed them in position along the side of
the slope.

Rob rejoined the Prince and Dr. Cameron, and described the situation.
For long Charles was set upon aiding in the defence; but the
knowledge that such a course would probably seal the fate of his
friends, persuaded him on flight.  There was not a moment to spare.

[Illustration: THE HOLDING OF THE PASS.]

Accompanied by the man Grant, and bidding a hasty and melancholy
farewell to Muckle John, they hurried down the hill-side and
disappeared.

Rob let them go in silence.  The Prince was safe for the present, and
with him Cameron and the keys to the treasure.  For him, as for
Muckle John, there was nothing but danger, even if they won through
in the defence of the pass.

Presently the first shot rang re-echoing down the desolate glen, and
he crept forward to where Muckle John sat with a musket across his
knees.

"Rob!" he cried, in a voice half anger, half surprise.

"I could not go," he said simply.

For a moment Muckle John looked at him queerly.

"Man, Rob," he said at last, "you're a rare one.  But what of
Mistress Macpherson?  Promise me that you will take to your heels
when I tell ye, and go straight for Inverness.  She will shield you
till better times.  Promise, Rob."

"I promise," replied he.

Next moment the firing started in earnest.

Rob took in the situation at a glance.  It was very improbable that
the soldiers had come upon them by accident.  They most certainly
knew that the Prince was in hiding in the cleft of the hill.  To
surround the place was impossible.  The only way was to rush the
defence, and carry the pass by storm.  The reckless manner in which
they exposed themselves pointed to the prize they had in view.

As he looked down the glen, lying full length upon a smooth-faced
boulder, something in the appearance of a soldier standing a little
apart made him call to Muckle John and point him out.

At that very moment, however, the man took off his hat to wipe his
brow, and they recognized the cunning features of Captain Strange.

"The crows are gathering," said Muckle John in his sombre voice, and
taking careful aim he fired at him, and sent his hat flying from his
hand.

"A miss!" he cried, bitterly; and, as though the report of his gun
were the signal for the advance, the soldiers began to move rapidly
towards them.

What Strange was shouting to them Rob could not hear; but probably,
elated at the chance of capturing the Prince, and vying with one
another in scrambling up the precipitous place, they were surprised
to see a dozen of their number riddled with bullets before they had
come to within a hundred yards of the pass.

Then, taking cover, they began to move their way upwards, firing as
they came.  It was a case of a hundred against a dozen; but after an
hour the rocks were dotted with silent red-coats, and still the
little garrison held out.  Two Highlanders were killed and one
wounded.

The Prince had had his chance.  Unless some unforeseen misfortune had
overtaken him he was safe by now.

Calling his men softly, Muckle John dispatched two with the one who
was wounded, thus reducing his forces to seven, and, lighting a pipe,
he calmly awaited the next attack.

It came with a wild rush, and a shattering fire some ten minutes
later.  The English had planted a dozen marksmen up the hill sides to
command the pass, and under the protection of their fire the
remainder began to run towards the narrow defile.

Half a dozen dropped and still they came on, and three more of the
little band of defenders fell under the storm of bullets.

"Claymores!" cried Muckle John suddenly, and unsheathing his great
blade, he flung down his musket and charged upon the foremost of the
advancing soldiers.

Rushing fresh and swiftly, with the slope to aid them, they drove the
enemy back in confusion, hewing them down like corn under the scythe.
But two more men were lost and the holding of the pass was nearing
its end.

Last of all to retrace his footsteps into the narrow pathway was
Muckle John, and even as Rob turned to speak to him a shot rang out
and a bullet lodged in his ankle-bone.

"It's all over now, Rob," he said, looking at the wound.  "I couldn't
cover a hundred yards like this.  Go, laddie, and you, Grant, and
you, Macpherson--away with you.  I can hold the place for a time."
With the help of the man Macpherson he bound a piece of his shirt
tightly about his ankle, and rested upon his other leg.

All was very quiet outside.  Evidently the enemy were gaining breath
for the next and final assault.

"Away with you," said Muckle John.

But the two men would not leave him.  They stood with Rob, awaiting
his fury--and they had not to wait long.

"Grant," he screamed, "what is this?  Are you not sworn to obey me?
And you, Macpherson?  Oh, that I should be flouted to my very face!
Begone, or I will kill you with my own sword!"

They were now in full view of the soldiers, but no shot fell.
Possibly the sight of a wrangle at such a time was too amazing to be
missed.

Avoiding his eyes the two Highlanders drew apart from their
infuriated leader, and spoke together in Gaelic.

"Are you going?" roared Muckle John.

They nodded, and passing him, strode down the pass towards the
soldiery.

Even Muckle John was taken by surprise.  With a sharp cry he
attempted to stop them, but it was too late.  They were twenty yards
away before he had scrambled along the track.

Then leaning heavily upon the smooth face of the rock, he watched
them with wistful eyes, saying no more.

"Farewell!" he cried at last; and fetching out his chanter he began
to play the "Battle of the Clans," at which they turned and saluted
him, and then, swinging their claymores, rushed upon the soldiers,
and slashing right and left, fell amongst a heap of slain.

In the pause that followed Muckle John changed the tune to the
"Lament for the Children," which is like a moonlit sea for sadness.
All the glen lay silent for a space at his playing; In a kind of
superstitious fear the red-coats waited, dreading the black hills and
menacing landscape, but dreading most of all the stricken player up
above.  It was Captain Strange who shook them from their panic.

Very cautiously they began to creep upwards, and at that, Muckle John
put away his whistle, and turning for his sword, saw Rob standing
beside him, a bare claymore in his hand.

"You here!" he cried.  "I thought you had gone.  It was dreaming I
was, Rob.  Run, boy, for the night is close upon us.  Ye won't?
Well, well--it's a rare spirit ye have, Rob, but it's like to trip
you up this night," and he swept the passage with his sword.

"Guard you my legs, Rob, and when I'm tired of standing on one foot,
I'll lean against the wall."  So in the deepening gloom, without
further word they awaited the attack.

It came very suddenly.  Two soldiers rushed with a wild shout down
the echoing passageway.  One was pierced on the instant by the point
of Muckle John's sword; the other swung about, and was caught on the
turn by a lunge from Rob.

"Two," said Muckle John softly, and eased his dirk for the short
upward stab.  A moment's pause, and four men came at a cautious pace
towards them.  Muskets they carried, but they did not level them for
fear of hitting the Prince, for so they took the indistinct figure of
Rob to be.  Instead, they clubbed them, and prepared to smash down
the defence of their sword-play.  At that, however, Muckle John
slipped a pistol out of his belt, and discharged it in their faces,
to their utmost confusion.  One man screamed, and, holding his hands
to his eyes, dashed headlong down the slope.  His cries sent a chill
to Rob's very heart.

Then suddenly they charged the place, driving the foremost men onward
from the rear, and even the quick thrust and stab of Muckle John
could not resist that reckless onslaught.  Within a few minutes the
heap of the dead and fallen men was up to their elbows in that narrow
place.

The voice of Strange urging on the fragments of his force now reached
them.  But only muttering curses and sullen voices followed, and with
a laugh, Muckle John whistled a Highland rant--a mischievous,
derisive tune, with a world of insolence in it.

It brought its reply, for even as he whistled, a single man came down
the black passage-way, staying his pace only when he stood within
sword-thrust.

"Muckle John," he said quietly.

The other ceased his whistling.

"At your service, Captain Strange," he replied, with a faint note of
amusement in his voice.

"Will you have it out with me, Muckle John?" went on Strange.  "Let
it be to the death, for they will never forgive me this night's work."

"Oho!" cried Muckle John.  "Here's a ploy!  Did they think that such
as you could take me?"

"Not you; but one whom you have sheltered, Heaven alone knows why.
Is he still here?"

"He left two hours ago and more.  You must search Lochaber, Captain
Strange.  I doubt you've made a sair muddle of this."

The moon was topping the hills, and a soft grey light stole suddenly
down the crags, and fell upon the face of Strange.

"What of your men?" asked Muckle John at last.

Strange gave a bitter laugh.

"They will not stir," he said, "and if they do, Rob here can hold the
pass."

"I am not an executioner," said Muckle John, "and I have only one
leg."

"Then I must say that Muckle John was mair glib with his tongue than
his sword.  But I will not say Muckle John--I will say..."

"Enough!  Let that name bide its time."

For a minute Muckle John remained silent, then limping towards the
flat place before the cave-mouth, he took a long draught of water.

"Come on, sir," he cried, "and you, Rob, guard the pass."

He saluted Strange, who had flung off his coat and rolled up his
sleeves, but suddenly he lowered his sword.

"Should I fall," he said, "what of Rob here?"

"He shall go free."

With that they fell to, and the rasping of steel upon steel was the
only sound in the grim silence.

Muckle John, supporting his weight upon one leg, foiled the vicious
thrusts of his opponent with steady endurance.  That Strange was a
skilled fencer of the rapier school he realized at once.  That he was
also cunning and agile he took for granted.

Had he been able to act on the offensive, and bring his vast strength
to the attack, no rapier play could have warded off his great blade
and iron arm, and yet the growing strain upon his sound ankle was
already telling.  He was like a man fighting against time.

With a feint Strange lunged for his neck--only a flicker of cold
steel, but Muckle John was a fraction of a second quicker, and his
opponent, recovering, crouched in the moonlight like a panther foiled
in its spring.

Rob, in the meantime, had striven to watch the passage; but no sign
of an attack came to set him on his guard, and few could have turned
their backs upon that fierce contest amongst the grey, watching crags.

For now Strange had changed his tactics, and strove to lure on Muckle
John and catch him off his balance; but there was more in it than
that, for nearing the moon sailed a belt of black cloud, and much can
be done by one active as a cat in the darkness.  But Muckle John was
also aware of the cloud and when it drifted over the moon, and they
were plunged in darkness, he turned silently to his right, and,
kneeling upon one knee, pointed his sword upwards, leaning meanwhile
upon his naked dirk.

That Strange would attack on his wounded side so as to ensure a
speedy dispatch, was more than probable.  It was not the first time
that Muckle John had fought in the black darkness.  A moment, and a
whistle of steel passed close to his ear, and lunging upwards with a
twist of the wrist, he felt the blade win home, and a dreadful cry
broke the stillness.

Slowly the moon passed out of the clouds, and streamed its feeble
light upon the open space between the rocks.

On the smooth surface Strange lay with one arm outstretched and the
other clutching his breast.

"He fought hard," said Muckle John, staggering to his feet.  "I doubt
I've killed him."

The wounded man began to cough, and then, without a spoken word,
turned a little away from them, and with a shudder lay utterly still.

For a moment they stood above him, then Muckle John turned to Rob.

"Come," said he, "for we must be far from here before the dawn."

And so they passed out of that terrible place, with all its silent
forms on the hill-side and that one lonely figure huddled in the
moonlight, Muckle John leaning upon Rob's shoulder, limping towards
the west.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE WHISTLE OF THE BANSHEE

In the greyness of the dawn Muckle John called a halt.

"Rob," he said, "here is the day and only a mile covered since last
night.  Ye ken what that means?  Within a few hours reinforcements
will arrive from Fort Augustus, they will find the body of
Strange--what must follow then?"

Rob shook his head.  Escape seemed impossible.

"And yet," said Muckle John, "there must be a way--there's always a
way, Rob, if you give your mind to it.  There is no prison that
cannot be broken, no wall that cannot be scaled--with luck and a cool
head.  I know, Rob, for have I not done it time and again?  But I've
always had a sound pair of legs.  Let us look at the situation, Rob.
Within an hour or two this country-side will be hotching with
red-coats.  They think the Prince is hereabouts.  Now I cannot cover
half a mile in that time, and there is no cover worth thinking about.
Nor is the ground marshy or I could lie hid to my nose until it was
night.  But there is a way, Rob...."

He paused and fingered his ankle very tenderly, muffling a strip of
his shirt tightly round it.

"Over the knoll there, Rob, is a ruined castle, little enough of it
left now to be sure, but there are four walls, a huddle of stones
upon the roof, and a burial-place."

"A burial place?"

"Aye, but there's no harm in that.  There was a chief of the Macraes
buried there, he was a very queer man it is said, but it's long since
I looked at his stone.  No one ever goes near it after dark, Rob, and
mind ye I'm no just hankering after it mysel'."

"But surely they will search the place?"

"Rob," said Muckle John cannily, "there's searching and searching.
There's a deal in hiding where folk do not look for ye."

Again they started laboriously on, Muckle John leaning upon Rob's
shoulder and supporting himself with a rough crutch hewn from a tree
upon the hill-side.  Just over the knoll they saw the grey stones of
the old stronghold Muckle John had spoken of, a poor enough refuge to
all appearances, and certainly one not likely to be overlooked by the
soldiers.

Inside the walls the grass was long and rank and in the midst of the
grass stood a slab of granite upon four other slabs, making a square
memorial very moss-covered and decayed, marking the burial-place of
the Macrae.

Opposite it in the wall was a great open chimney-stack.  To this
Muckle John limped, and staring upwards beckoned to Rob.

"See here," he said, "there is about three feet up a place in the
wall large enough for a small man to lie hid.  You cannot see it for
a very good reason, but it's a bonny spot to hide.  Come, Rob, upon
my shoulders--there's not a moment to lose."

"But what of you?" asked Rob.

"Up," said Muckle John, "I see them on the brow of the hill."

"No," said Rob, "I will not go until..."

But he had time for no more for Muckle John had him by the throat and
was squeezing the very life out of him.

"Dinna clash words with me--you Fraser loon," he snarled, "up ye go
or I'll break your neck."

After that Rob was only too ready to get out of reach of those
terrible arms.

In the chimney-stack, just as Muckle John had said, there was a place
very cunningly hollowed so as to be invisible from below, where a man
looking upward saw only a square patch of sky and the broken masonry
that fringed the top.

Crouching doubled up with his head upon his knees, he listened for a
word from Muckle John.  But none came.  All he heard was a curious
shuffling and a noise like the shutting of a door.

Suddenly, it seemed about a mile distant, a bugle sounded, and very
faintly there drifted to him the echo of a shout.

Through the empty place below he heard the wind crying, and the
singing of it in the long grass, but of Muckle John not a word.

Out on the moor he could hear the stream drumming cheerily over the
stones.  It was a bright spring morning full of the singing of birds,
very difficult to associate with sudden death and a quick burying
under the heather.  Those who had met the English on their jaunts
into the hills had small reason to hope for mercy and none for the
dignity of a trial.  It was better to leave home by the back door and
dodge the bullets.  In those far-off days an English soldier at fifty
yards was comparatively harmless.

Rob craned his ears for any sound of their advance.  But there was
not the smallest hint of impending danger.  For all he knew they
might be scouring the country-side Loch Ness way.  They might by this
time be a couple of miles away.  Already he was becoming exceedingly
stiff.  He struggled with a growing temptation to move one leg just
an inch.  Very cautiously he did so.  He succeeded in making a
noise--not a loud noise, indeed, but in that hollow place quite loud
enough to make him turn cold with fear.  But nothing happened, there
was no whisper of spying red-coats creeping stealthily amongst the
ruins, listening for all he could tell within three feet of his
hiding-place.

Suddenly he heard a rustle in the grass below him, and a creak like
the noise of a boot.  He was instantly transfixed with terror.  It is
well enough to meet death in the open, though by no means a pleasant
business there, but to sit cooped up in a chimney unable to see what
is happening above or below is more than human nerves can tolerate.
He had a tantalizing desire to peep over the edge, to catch one
heartening glimpse of the green grass below, to assure himself that a
red-faced English soldier was not peering up or fixing his bayonet to
poke it about inside.

But he knew in his heart that did he look down he would most surely
see what he most dreaded, and so he lay still with every bone in his
body aching and one leg tingling with numbness as though a score of
needles were pricking it from every side.

And still nothing happened, and there was only the crying of wind
about the crumbling walls, and the ceaseless drumming of stream water
on the moor.

He fell into a kind of doze at last when the blood seemed to stop
circulating in his body, and once he knocked his head most painfully
against the sharp edges of the crevice, having nodded with fatigue.
His eyes would not stay open, and a terrible struggle against sleep
began.  He had already suffered a rude awakening by the soldiery
outside Captain Campbell's tent, and he was not desirous of
undergoing another.  He began to hear noises that he knew in his
heart did not exist, or if they did were caused by the creatures of
the wild or birds settling for a moment up above his head.  He took
to staring at the opposite of the chimney where very dimly he could
see the pebbles stuck in the mortaring and the rude chipped stones.
These he counted for a time in order to rid his mind of the bayonet.
But always he saw its gleaming steel-cold point just before his face.
He could see it now.  Surely it was a bayonet?  Rob shut his eyes
very tightly, then opened them again.  It was still there.  More than
that it moved--it scraped against the stone just an inch from his
foot.  He saw a small piece chipped neatly off.  He actually heard it
rattle down upon the empty floor below.

With a blinding shock he realized that it was a bayonet--that they
were come--that in secrecy and silent as ghosts the place was full of
soldiers, had been perhaps for hours.  Sleep was instantly banished
and fear set him once more alert.  His only hope lay in utter
silence.  Again the bayonet hovered like a snake within a few inches
of his knees.  He knew the man was staring upwards, vaguely
suspicious, despite the apparent smooth emptiness of the chimney.  He
was not satisfied.  The bayonet worked its way round the place again.
Another piece chipped off, this time a larger piece.  Why, Rob
wondered, with the sweat upon his brow, did the man not try the other
side?  It was just as likely there.  Did he really know?  Was this a
little sport to while away the time?  It was almost more than he
could bear.

Very carefully the bayonet worked its blind course round again, and
this time it carried about an eighth of an inch off his brogue.  Next
time it would be his bare flesh.  Suddenly the bayonet vanished.  The
man apparently tired of it, or satisfied that there was no hidden
place in the chimney, drew his musket down and all was quiet again.

Rob was half-minded to ease his aching limbs when a peculiar sweet
smell came drifting past him.  There was some one smoking in the
place below, and what was more very close to the chimney to send the
fragrance up the shaft of it.  Rob considered the matter very
carefully.  It seemed possible that the soldier was alone, and quite
unconscious of his presence.  A man did not smoke in silence unless
he was solitary, and smoking was an idle recreation not associated
with premeditated murder.  Perhaps the fellow was lost or tired.
Perhaps (most comforting thought of all) he would fall asleep.  He
wondered just how he was sitting, and whether he was leaning against
the hearthstone with his eyes half-closed and the top of his head not
so far below him.

With the utmost caution Rob leaned forward and peeped over.

It was just as he had pictured it.  In the open fire-place a soldier
was huddled at his ease, his hat upon the ground, his back against
the slab of blackened stone, the pipe stuck at an angle in his mouth
and his lank hair dishevelled and on end.  He was dozing.  Even as
Rob watched him the pipe in his mouth slid upon his coat, where it
lay on its side with a thin curl of smoke twining from the bowl.

Rob considered the situation.  He was convinced that the man was
alone, but there was the likelihood that he had been dispatched there
to await the search-party.  The state of that district was hardly one
to encourage solitary English soldiers to sleep at their good
pleasure.  The ghastly pine-tree within a mile or two of this very
spot was a grim enough reminder of that.

Rob was strongly inclined to fall upon him while he slept, and trust
to knocking him senseless or dirking him as he struggled in the
narrow fire-place.  Those were not gentle times.  Dirking seemed a
very natural action to Rob.  He looked on the soldier below him as a
sworn foe beyond the claims of pity--an invader and murderer of his
people.  Under no possible circumstances could Rob have regarded an
Englishman with sympathy or admiration since for centuries he had
been looked upon as a natural enemy, and now a very bitter one indeed.

But if he failed to kill the man, then the game was up, and even if
he did succeed in his design they were not much better off, Muckle
John could not reach a place of safety, and another slaughtered
Englishman would only point to their near presence in the
neighbourhood and redouble the soldiers' previous energies.

And then as though to settle the matter once and for all, a bugle
sounded near at hand, the soldier awoke and scrambled to his feet,
there was a noise of marching on the moor outside and the splashing
of a horse passing through the burn.  Rob heard an order given and
the grounding of arms.  He listened to the roll-call being read and
the words of dismissal.

The short afternoon was closing in, and to his horror he realized
that they were camping for the night.

Into the open room below he heard several men enter, and their
conversation reached him in his hiding-place.  There was little
comfort in what they said.  As far as he could judge the officer in
charge was questioning the soldier who had fallen asleep under the
chimney.

"Seen no one I suppose?"  He spoke with a Highland accent.

"No, sir, and I've searched the place high and low."

"Been up the chimney?"

"Yes, sir."

"Looked under that gravestone there?"

"No, sir, it's not possible to move that."

"Call two of the men, we'll soon see to that."

There was a moment's silence and then a sound of heaving.

"Can't budge it, sir."

"Here let me have a hand."

A sudden fear came to Rob that perhaps Muckle John had taken refuge
there--but no, what four men could not move it was unlikely he could
lift with his injured ankle.

"Sergeant," said the officer, "march back to the cave where the
engagement took place yesterday with twelve men, leave the other four
with me, we'll spend the night here."

"Here, sir--with that stone?"

"It takes more than a dead Jacobite to frighten me," replied the
officer, and a few minutes later Rob heard the tramp of feet die away
again.

It was darkening fast and he wondered what Muckle John was doing and
where he was, whether if he was lying hid in the heather he would
make a sign, or whether he must spend the whole frightful night
cooped up like a fowl in a pen.

He must have dozed a little when a curious noise made him start and
listen with strained ears.  It was a familiar enough sound--just the
sharp crackling of firewood, but there was a horrible significance in
it now, for a whiff of smoke curling up into his face set his eyes
watering.

They had lit a fire in the hearth below.  The thin wisp of smoke grew
into a column swirling unsteadily upwards.  It became a solid volume
choking and hot.  With a sob of pain and despair Rob covered his face
with his bonnet.  For a few minutes that relieved his eyes and nose,
but the danger of being suffocated was only subordinate to being
roasted alive.  It was a great roaring fire they were laying.  He
heard the loose sticks and dried heather falling in bundles on the
blaze.

His ears sang with the suffocation of it, his brain swirled and his
breath came in short gasps as a fish gasps upon a bank.  And then
with a pitiful cry he fell forward, down upon the fire itself and
with a swirl of smoke and sparks, into the midst of the soldiers.

The officer thinking that the blackened, tattered figure might be the
Prince himself hastened to stamp out the tongues of flame upon his
clothes, and dragging him to his feet stared into his face.

"Tuts," he said in a tone of deep disappointment.  "It's only a boy."

"It's the lad who escaped," cried a soldier peering at him; "the Duke
offers fifty pounds for his arrest."

"What lad?" asked the officer, eyeing Rob with some interest.

"Rob Fraser, he knows...," but the officer broke in, "Never mind what
he knows," he said testily, "bind him and set him against the wall."

Long after when Rob was come to himself and his eyes more accustomed
to the light from the great fire he watched the officer at his
supper.  He was a small red-haired man with cold blue eyes and white
eyebrows, for all the world like a badger, and with Campbell written
all over him.  It was an evil day when a Campbell could strut over
the country-side at his ease.

Having finished his food and offering none to Rob, who nearly begged
him for a mouthful so famished was he, the officer lit his pipe and
called in his men, telling them they could sleep along the walls of
the place.

Greatly affable through meat and drink he also fell into
conversation, and being like most little men very anxious to show
what a terrible fellow he was, with the spirit of a giant, he related
the tale of the banshee of Loch Fyne, and told it so capably that the
soldiers drew a little together and sent the bottle round in some
uneasiness.

"It came from a lonely island," he said, "and none saw it pass over
the grey face of the loch--but there was a mournful cry that seemed
to be far up in the clouds and a cold wind passing like a wraith
along the barren shore.  Oh it was the rare one the banshee of Loch
Fyne, and some said it lived in the lonely island where the dead lay,
for it always passed that way, and it never travelled alone."

"I don't like these Highland tales," said one Englishman with a
shiver, "least of all hereabouts.  There was a ghost I've heard tell
in Holmbury Hall..."

"Whisht to your ghosts," broke in a large Lowland Scot, whose eyes
were great with the story of the banshee.  "Captain here has seen the
banshee, have ye no, sir?"

Now the officer had never before claimed that privilege.  It is
improbable that he had ever been to the shores of Loch Fyne, being a
Glen Etive man, and it is also open to question whether the dreaded
banshee was not a traveller's tale.  However that may be he was not
prepared to disappoint his hearers at so propitious a time.

"Once--once," he replied, being a man as truthful as a lie would
permit, "only once and that at midnight--a clear moon in the sky and
no wind to speak of.  I was a youngster at the time, barely twenty,
and as reckless as could be.  It was always said that the banshee
rose from the ancient burial-place at twelve o'clock, and floating
across the loch set out on her evil errand.  There are those who
heard poor Angus Campbell wailing all through a winter's night and
his voice up in the clouds, 'Tha e lamhan fuar: Tha e lamhan fuar!
It has a cold, cold hand!'"

"My goodness," gasped the Lowlander, dragging himself nearer to the
fire.

On every face about the dying blaze superstitious fear was written.
Even Rob, weak with want of food and full of misery, heard his teeth
chatter at the picture the little man drew--for he was an artist in
gruesome effects.

"Over I rowed," he continued, "and the whole clachan watched me go.
I rowed out over the silvery loch under a rising moon, and there was
no whisper of what was to come, not even the soft music that the
banshee..."

"What was that?" gasped one of the soldiers in a trembling voice.

They all turned about and listened.

"I thought I heard a tune far away," he whispered, shaking with
fright.

"Tuts," said the officer, but none too happily, "it was nothing.  But
the tune that the banshee plays is a queer twisted tune, and once ye
hear it there's no getting away--what was that?  I'll swear I heard
something."

This from the little officer himself set all aquiver with agitation.
Some one tried to throw some more wood on the fire and found there
was none, while the two nearest to the open space in the wall drew so
close to their comrades that they were hunched up together like
cattle in a drove.

Rob crouched under the shadow of the wall overcome with a kindred
fear.  Forgotten was Muckle John--forgotten was his impending
fate--there only remained the dreaded banshee and the far away
haunting echo of a tune, and the strangeness of the place they were
in.

"Come, come," said the officer with some attempt at soothing them,
"it's queer the way the courage goes in these forlorn places.  As I
was saying I lay watching the great tombstone that the moonlight
rested upon, when I heard a bit ripple of music that fairly made the
flesh creep on my bones and my hair stand up quite crisp and
prickling.  And will ye believe me the stone of the tomb began to
rise..."

"Listen!" screamed Rob.

His shrill warning acted on them like an electric shock.  They
scrambled to their feet in a perfect paroxysm of terror.  And then
far away like a ghostly measure sounded a lilting, ghastly melody.
Ghastly it sounded in that dim place with only the sullen red light
upon the broken, haunted walls--ghastly just because it was a
trifling mocking catch of tune played in a grim and heartless manner.

But more was to come.

"Let us get out of here," groaned one of the Englishmen in a hoarse
voice, but he spoke too late.

For before their starting eyes the top of the massive tomb began to
lift--lift--lift, and the tune to grow clearer coming ever nearer
like a man marching slowly into their midst.

Then there was such a scene as that lonely moor had never seen before
and will never see again.  For with one united howl of terror they
rushed together for the door.  And first of them all was the little
officer.  Into the silent night they tore, tripping, falling, never
daring to look back, but set on reaching Fort Augustus in the
swiftest possible manner.

Only once did the little officer pause, having fallen head-first into
a bog, and as he scrambled out he heard (or says he heard) the thing
at his very heels floating ten feet from the ground and playing as it
came.

Rob, unable to fly, was forced to a bravery he did not relish.  And
so with tightly closed eyes and his head buried under a tuft of grass
he prepared for the end.  Look at that dreadful sight again he would
not.  He heard the mad tumult of the flying soldiers--he caught a
loud bang like a heavy door clanging to--he listened with trembling
limbs to the ghostly melody dying upon the moor.

And then back again he caught the sound of footsteps, and he knew
that the banshee was come to eat him at its leisure.

It was groping across the floor towards him.  Now it was touching
him.  Its hands were as cold as the little officer had said.

"Rob!" said Muckle John, shaking him.

He uttered a muffled cry partly because of his mouth being so stuffed
with grass, partly through the shock of it all, but mostly because it
was all so unexpected.

Muckle John said nothing but cut him free, and taking the strips of
rope threw them on the fire.

"Should they ever come back, which will only be by day if at all," he
said, "they will know that it ate ye up every scrap.  But I'm
doubting if they will.  Let us make up the fire, Rob, and take our
sleep, for there'll be few meddling us awhile."

"But how could you do it, Muckle John?"

He put some sticks upon the embers and began to eat the remnants of
the soldiers' supper.

"Did I no say there is always a way, Rob, div ye but find it.  There
are few places hereabouts that I do not know, Rob, and maybe that's
in my favour.  But if I was to say that the tombstone is no tombstone
at all, and that Macrea is merely a manner of speech, I'll allow I
might seem to have deceived ye.  But just as the fox, bless him,
knows his hiding-place before he sets ahunting, so I, Rob, have made
wee preparations long syne.  They may come in useful some day, and
when I lay hid in that same stone in the year '41 for a private
matter, I was glad enough to have taken the precaution."

"What was that for?" asked Rob, his head nodding with sleep.

But Muckle John only handed him a bannock and a cup of water from the
burn.

"That would be telling," he said, and wrapping himself up in his
plaid he sat blinking at the fire.




CHAPTER XIX

THE DANCE OF THE MACKENZIES

During the mending time of Muckle John's ankle they lay hid in the
broken castle, and such a tale was told about the banshee that the
place was given a wide berth.  Each of the four soldiers related the
terrible experience to a dozen other soldiers and those added a
trifle of their own and handed it on so that within a day the whole
of Fort Augustus knew of it, and soon it was spreading to the
searching parties amongst the hills and within a week Edinburgh was
posting it down to London.

Many, indeed, scoffed at the thing but, as none came to give the
banshee a personal test--the desire of Muckle John for absolute quiet
was gratified.  The castle was treated with profound respect for
fully a century afterwards.

It fell to Rob to scour the neighbouring country at night for food,
and so a week passed peacefully enough, and one evening with a
promise of fine weather and a starlit night they prepared to set out
again.

"Let us make for Loch Carron, Rob," said Muckle John, "the country
thereabouts is clear of troops and when we hear news of a French ship
in the Sound of Sleat we can go south."

"Must we go to France, Muckle John?"

"That or Holland, Rob--but only for a while.  This will all blow
over, and when you have grown a beard, back you will come and none
will know ye."

"But won't you return too?"

"I?  That depends, Rob, I doubt but the country will be too quiet for
me.  The Highlands are no what they were.  I mind the day when a
gentleman could lift a few head of cattle at his good pleasure.  But
there'll be little of that soon, Rob, and I was not brought up to
trade like a lowland bailie."

Somewhat depressed by such a prospect, Muckle John sighed, and so
they set out again and reached Glen Affrick before the dawn.  There
they lay hid under the shelter of a crag until the evening, when they
set out as before and two days later halted on the shores of Loch
Carron, having encountered no dangers on the road.

At the head of the lock was a small, mean-looking inn, and outside,
sitting on their haunches, half a dozen rough-looking men--swarthy,
black-haired fellows in the Mackenzie tartan.  They were chattering
together like monkeys as Muckle John and Rob approached, but on
seeing them they fell silent and stared at them both with hostile,
insolent eyes.  There was not a man there who did not think of
Culloden the moment he saw them--Muckle John with his limp and Rob
with hunted Jacobite written all over him.  There was little welcome
for strangers in those days when a body of red-coats on the smallest
pretext might burn an unoffending village to the ground.

But they said nothing, glowering up at them under their shaggy brows.

Muckle John took them in at a glance.  He read just what was in their
minds, and with a quiet good-day he passed them and entered the inn.

"Rob," he whispered, "not a move till I tell ye."

A haggard old woman was sitting upon a stool before the peats.  She
raised her eyes and stared at them both for a time without
speech--then something in the build of Muckle John set her staring
afresh until he bent his head and looked into her lined, yellow face.

"Tha sibh an so," she cried huskily, "you here?"

"Whisht!" said Muckle John, "how is it with you, Sheen?"

She crooned at the name he used.

"It is well," she replied, "but what of you--and what is it I can do?"

"Tell me, Sheen," said he, "what of this place--is it safe?"

She shook her head.

"There is death here," she said, "Neil Mackenzie is back from the
wars--he is new come from the pursuit of the Prince--you must fly,
and the boy with you.  Did they see you outside?"

He nodded, with his eyes on the door.

"We are awaiting news from France," he said, "how can we leave
here--they would overtake us."

Over the face of the old woman there crept a look of fear.

"Hark!" she said, "there are footsteps along the road."

They all stood listening intently.

Nearer and nearer came the thud of feet.

"It is himself," she whispered, "Neil Mackenzie new come from Skye."

Muckle John smiled grimly.

"From the frying-pan into the fire, Rob," said he, and sat down
beside the fire.

Out upon the roadway they heard muffled voices and once a man's face
looked in at the window-hole and disappeared very sharply.

As for Muckle John he appeared greatly interested in the peats upon
which he was sitting.

Suddenly there appeared in the doorway a man of about fifty, of
middle height, but with the broadest shoulders and chest that Rob had
ever seen.  He was in full Highland dress, with a claymore at his
side, and one hand rested on the hilt of it and the other on his hip.
His attitude was cool and insolent.  His features were broad and
coarse and his smooth, clean-shaven face over fat and pink, but there
was no denying the spirit of the man.  His eyes were full of
it--that, and an ugly malice.

[Illustration: HE WAS IN FULL HIGHLAND DRESS, WITH A CLAYMORE AT HIS
SIDE.]

Muckle John glanced at him very casually and fell to examining his
finger-nails, while Rob stared at the stranger in open wonder.

Behind the man in the doorway there clustered a half-dozen dirty
Mackenzies like cattle beasts nosing at a gate.

Neil Mackenzie, for he it was, set about ordering a drink for himself
and then sitting down upon a stool he stared at Muckle John in the
same insolent manner, while into the room trooped the men from the
roadside, intent on the sport.  They had seen Neil at this game
before.  He was the rare one to lay a stranger by the heels.

"Maybe you've travelled far the day?" he asked in a voice like the
bark of a fox.

Muckle John looked him over slowly.

"Maybe," he replied, and warmed his hands at the peats.

Mackenzie stirred upon his stool.

"You are not the only one on the road with a hacked ankle to-day," he
said.

"A hacked ankle," retorted Muckle John, "is mair consoling than a
hewn head."

So far they had spoken in Scots, but now, as though to let his men
hear how the matter went, Mackenzie rose to his feet and swaggering
across to Rob gave him a cuff on the head and said:

"Whose young bantam are you, lad, and what kind of tartan is that for
the Mackenzie country?"

Now Rob was not the one to take blows from any one, least of all
before a crowd of jeering strangers, and had Muckle John not given
him a look there is no saying but that he might have acted rashly.

"There are times," answered Muckle John, "when a man is grateful for
small mercies."

Instantly Mackenzie grew very red and took to breathing quickly, like
all Highlanders in a passion.

"I seem to know your face," said he, "but I do not know the tartan
you wear."

"It is a strange people you are," said Muckle John, "who do not know
a bard when you see one."

"A bard," echoed Mackenzie, "then sing or play," and he laughed at
the rest of them and winked for what was to follow.

"My boy here carries my instrument," he said, and he drew Rob aside
under pretence of conferring with him.

"Rob," he whispered, "hark to the tune that runs just so," and he
hummed a bar, "maybe it will be called 'Mackenzie's Dance.'  When I
have played it once do as I tell," and he laid his mouth close to the
boy's ear.  "Make your way out and take the old woman with ye, for
she can give you a hand."

Then, turning on the Mackenzies, he smiled like a man on a pleasant
errand, and standing with his back to the fire began to sing, and at
the first note a strange hush fell over the Mackenzies, for none had
ever listened to singing like that.

The sun had set an hour since and the grey mist of the gloaming was
creeping over the loch and along the beach.  Far out at sea a boat
was heading shorewards.  Muckle John saw it through the open
window-space.  It was a boat swiftly rowed and carrying a flag at the
stern.  Mackenzie was watching it too--a derisive smile upon his
lips.  And as Muckle John sang he saw the smile and measured the
distance that divided the boat from the land with a swift glance.

"Brawly sung," cried the Mackenzies, laughing in their sleeves at the
rude awakening the stranger would have.

Muckle John paused a moment and drew his whistle out of his pocket.

"If you were to give me the space of an elbow," said he, "I would
play you a tune."

"Way there," cried Mackenzie, and they fell back, leaving a passage
to the door.

At that Muckle John broke into a lament called "The Glen of Tears,"
and in the wail of it was the sadness of twilight and the story of it
was the passing of years.  Sorrow--sorrow and the old days that are
gone for always--backwards and forwards went Muckle John and tears
trickled down the cheeks of the Mackenzies, while Neil, their leader,
hung his head and said in his mind, "We will not fall on him yet, but
wait awhile until we have heard another tune."

And all the time the boat was nearing the shore.

Without pausing Muckle John swung out a reel, and so brisk was his
way with the fingering and so lively the measure that they fell to
dancing there and then, turning and hooching, and best of them Neil
Mackenzie, a scoundrel if ever there was one.

None noticed how Muckle John had reached the open doorway.  It was
only the pause that he made (which was pure reckless madness of him)
until they found themselves staring at each other shamefacedly and
looking at Neil to see what was in his mind.  But he only grinned,
thinking of the rare joke that was coming and nodded to Muckle John.

"Go on," he shouted.

Muckle John bowed his head.  On his lips was a dangerous smile.

"I will play a tune," said he, "called 'The Dance of the
Mackenzies'--it came running in my head an hour back."

"It is the quick mind he has," muttered a black Mackenzie to his
neighbour.

"I am not liking the look in his eyes," was the reply, "he is no fool
that big man."

But Muckle John was already fingering his whistle, and it was
certainly a taking tune and yet with something queer about
it--something that made them glance at each other under their eyes
for dread of they knew not what.

And Neil Mackenzie started from his lethargy too late.

For at the last bar there was the noise of crackling upon the
roof--and the thatch was in a blaze.

With a shout he drew his sword and rushed for the door, but the
stranger was ready for him and no man in the Highlands single-handed
could hold his own for a minute against the long claymore of Muckle
John.  He stood in the narrow doorway leaning a little forward, and
with a dirk in his left hand.

"Dance!" he shouted derisively as the noise of the fired thatch grew
to a sullen roar.  "Dance, you dogs!" and flicking the claymore from
Neil Mackenzie's hand he ran him through the sword arm.

Then they came at him altogether, a bristling, snarling crowd, armed
with dirks only and helpless against his long blade.  He drove them
back with harsh laughter--fought them back into the blinding smoke,
and standing in the doorway burst into song again, putting words to
the tune he had played.  In a stricken silence they listened, while
out in the darkness a boat on the loch halted and rested oars
watching the red flames curling up into the night.

"Dance--dance on the feet of fire!" sang Muckle John, "Mackenzies
tripping it brawly."

Suddenly from the room where the smoke was dense and black a voice
called on him to hear them.  It was Neil himself.

"What do you want with us?" he cried.

Muckle John stared into the mirk.

"Throw out your arms," said he, "and you, Neil Mackenzie, come out
first and stand on one side."

There was an instant clatter of dirks and one broadsword.

"Rob," cried Muckle John, "take this man away there and pistol him if
he shows mischief, though I sliced his arm prettily enough."

Then turning back, Muckle John collected the arms together and called
on the Mackenzies to come out.  This they did readily enough, gasping
and coughing in the glare of the fire, and rubbing the smart of it
from their aching eyes.

Seeing that they meditated no attack Muckle John threw their dirks
into the blazing house, and then marched up to them.

"I am taking your chief," he said, "as a safeguard.  If I am followed
I will claymore him as surely as my name is Muckle John."

"Muckle John!" they cried aghast.

"I thought he was no ordinary man," said the black Mackenzie to his
neighbour.

"Muckle John!" repeated the other, "it is the rare fools we have
been, Angus--I think I will be getting home."

"Come," said Muckle John to Neil Mackenzie, and without a word they
started.

But of a sudden Muckle John stopped in his tracks.

"Rob," he said, "make due south, keeping the sea-line and halt two
miles away on the shore.  I have business here," and turning back he
disappeared in the darkness.

Near the wrecked cottage he found the old woman weeping silently.

"Sheen, poor woman," he said, "it is not my father's son would ruin
you who know my secret."

"You are still nameless?"

"Still nameless, Sheen, until I meet the man who killed my father."

"Who will he be?"

"Who, indeed?  But I shall know him.  I go abroad again when I can.
Some day perhaps I shall come across him.  They say he had a horror
of the 'The Pedlars' Reel'--it was the tune my father died with in
his throat, and it is the tune, Sheen, that I play whenever I meet
such a man as he may be."

The old woman touched his arm.

"There is doom coming up the shore," she said, "I can feel it on the
wind."

"The boat," said Muckle John, "who was coming so fast in the boat?"

"I do not know, but there is death in the air."

Muckle John caught her arm.

"Here," said he, "take this--it is a trifle but it will buy you
another cottage, Sheen.  Good-bye--it is long till we shall meet
again."

He stepped past her and crept towards the beach.  On the shore the
boat was beached, and several men were scrambling up the sand.  One,
a tall thin man with a heavy cloak about him and a stick in his hand,
was supported by two sailors.

Muckle John crept closer.  Some Mackenzies were running to meet the
newcomer full of what had happened.

He listened to the tale they told the tall man, who seemed so faint
with illness or the sea that he had to sit down to hear them.

"Who was this man that Mackenzie sent for us to take?" asked one, the
captain of a frigate evidently.

"Muckle John!" cried a voice.

At that new life seemed to stream into the crouching, broken figure
on the sand.

"Muckle John!" he cried.

_It was the voice of Captain Strange_!


All that night Muckle John and Rob sped towards the south, and at the
dawn they reached the country of the Macraes, where they parted with
Mackenzie, and headed for the shores of Loch Hourn.

There on a desolate, rain-lashed moor, with salt upon the wind, and
the sea birds crying over their heads, Muckle John called a halt.

It was near the end of May, but a bitter day even for Loch Hourn.

"Where do we go now?" asked Rob, shivering with cold.

"Where indeed, for now we are driven into the English line of march
and Knoidart was the last place I hankered after.  It is better that
we should take different roads, Rob, we've travelled too long
together.  Make you for the south, Rob, and if all goes well wait
news for me outside Leith.  There is a gibbet there--shall we say
this day month, and if I do not come then just go your ways and never
say what took you there.  And, Rob, change that kilt and for mercy's
sake cover your legs with breeks and decent hose, for the like of you
would be recognized from end to end of Scotland.  They want you, Rob,
never forget that--they want you as a rebel, but that's havers; as a
prison breaker, but that's neither here nor there--they want you just
because you ken where Lovat lies hid, and what came to the treasure
of Arkaig.  What did come to that same treasure, Rob?  Where was it
buried or was it not buried at all?"

"I cannot say," replied Rob, "for I do not know."

Muckle John sighed and then shaking him by the hand addressed the far
distance with a pensive and melancholy gaze.

"Whether a man is mair injudicious as a fool or a knave must ever be
a matter of argument," he mused aloud, "but I ken fine which I would
have ye be, Rob," and shaking his head he began to move away.

Suddenly, however, he paused and coming back more quickly led Rob
down to the edge of the loch.

"Tell me," he said, "what is there to prevent me from putting you in
there?"

"Nothing," said Rob, "but I do not see what you would gain by that--I
tell you I know nothing of the treasure.  It was hid while I sat upon
the beach."

Muckle John shook his head in the same forlorn fashion.

"I hardly like to leave you, Rob," said he sadly, "there are times
when I wonder whether you are to be trusted alone.  Many men would
say you were daffing, Rob--but there's honesty written all over your
face.  I once met another just like yersel' so I know.  It's a
terrible responsibility to be so honest, Rob--it maks other folk
uncomfortable.  Good-bye to ye, Rob, and here's some siller just in
case you are hungry or want a night's lodging.  But be careful of the
wandering bodies Rannoch way, for they'd cut your throat for a nod
and follow you to London for the clink of a bawbee."

"Good-bye," said Rob, "where do you go now, Muckle John?"

"I make for Arisaig," he replied, "I have a debt to pay."

"A debt?"

"Not so surprised, Rob, no man pays his just debts like Muckle John.
Dirk for dirk--shot for shot--chase for chase--there is no honester
soul than Muckle John."

Rob laughed, though a trifle faint-heartedly, and in that manner they
parted, Muckle John passing rapidly southwards while Rob watched him
fade into the dreary landscape and become lost in the cold sea mist.




CHAPTER XX

AN UNWILLING ACCOMPLICE

It was at the corner of Church Street on the week following the
engagement at Glenmoriston, that Miss Macpherson, busied about a few
purchases, stopped very sharply opposite the tavern of Major James
Fraser (commonly known as Castleleathers) and peered with signs of
agitation at a printed paper hung in the window.  A casual onlooker
would never have known Miss Macpherson was even faintly moved by what
she read, but a close observer would have seen her mouth close
tightly, her brows droop over her keen eyes, her hands clutch the
parcels in her arms spasmodically.  It was enough to startle any
woman.  Indeed, most people would have lost their heads, and done
something foolish.

For the contents of the paper were principally devoted to a personal
description of one "Rob Fraser, a rebel at large, dressed in a kilt
of the Fraser tartan with a dark coat--sixteen years and over--of
strong build and dark-haired, who was in arms against the Government
at Culloden and has since broken prison from Fort Augustus, skulked
with desperate rebels and recently killed, in company with one called
Muckle John, a notorious Jacobite, a number of his Majesty's forces
in the country of Glenmoriston.  Whoever shall lay the said Rob
Fraser by the heels shall receive the sum of fifty pounds," and so on.

There was much more, but Miss Macpherson, sick at heart, walked
slowly away.  It would not do for her to be seen reading the thing.
Her mind was stunned for a moment.  She did not notice where she
went, or the passers-by.  It was only when she knocked against a
great man standing at the corner of the street that she started and
looked up.

It was Castleleathers.

She knew him slightly as a distant cousin of Rob's father, but would
have gone on her way had he not greeted her.

"A fine day, Miss Macpherson," he said loudly, as a couple of
soldiers tramped past them along the road, and then in a low tone,
"have you news of Rob?"

"No," she replied, "and no news is like to be good news in these
times.  What set him meddling with such things--the feckless loon?"

He jerked his head towards his house.

"Come away in," he whispered, "we must see what can be done."

Together they entered the place and going upstairs came to an upper
room.

He was a very heavy, red-faced, helpless kind of man.  His massive
incompetence under stress of emergency irritated her to tartness.

"It was here Rob met that soft-spoken gomeril, Muckle John," she
snapped.

"Aye, that it was," he replied, nodding moodily.

"And I suspect the man who gave him my address that evening, Major
Fraser."

"Dear me, Miss Macpherson, ye say so?"

"That I do, my man, and what's more he's in this very room."

With a pathetic simulation of surprise Castleleathers made as though
to look over his shoulder.

"It's yersel'," said Miss Macpherson coldly.

He tried to meet her stony stare, but failed.

"When ye mention it," he began like a man struggling to recall a
distant event, "when ye mention it, maybe I did say I was second
cousin to Rob who lived with his aunt near by--I'm no denying
anything mind ye, I merely say maybe I did in the course of
conversation, a pleasantry madam, a bit of gossip..."

"It's like to be a dear bit of gossip for Rob," she retorted, "and
that no so far away."

"Tuts! you take too serious a view.  It will all blow over--all blow
over.  There has been trouble before, I mind the '15, it was just the
same, and before a few months had passed all the folk were going
about their ways just the same and keeping their claymores oiled for
the next time.  Rob is a lad of spirit, Miss Macpherson, and they
will not take him."

But she was not listening to him.  She was revolving in the depths of
her mind some kind of plan, any sort of crazy plan that would save
Rob.  The day when he could have surrendered and escaped with a few
months' imprisonment was past; he was now a notorious rebel still in
arms, and associated with desperate leaders amongst the rebel army.
There was no hope of shielding him until better days.  It must be
escape across the sea--or a pardon.  But the idea of a pardon was, of
course, absurd.

"What can we do?" she said in a kind of restrained despair.

Castleleathers blinked.

"We?" he repeated vaguely.  "I fear that I..."

But she froze him with a single look.

"I am in no mind for argument," she said, "and our business is to get
Rob free.  I have at the back of my head a plan of a kind, but it
will need sleeping on."

"But I cannot risk my neck even to assist you, Miss Macpherson."

"My man," she replied grimly, "you will risk your neck if you don't.
Who shielded Muckle John, that desperate rogue, in Inverness under
Lord London's verra nose but just yersel'?"

"How did ye know?" he whispered, much taken aback.

"I didna," she replied comfortably, "but I suspected as much."

"He was an old friend."

"That would tickle the ears of the Duke, he has a sair grudge against
Muckle John, he told me so himsel'.  He said he'd willingly hang any
one who gave him shelter."

Castleleathers shrank back.

"He said that did he?" he murmured aghast.

She nodded her head.

"He's no sae sure of you as it is," she added.

He appeared considerably dejected at this, and said again and again
that he did not know what could be done at all.

"We must compel him to sign a pardon," said Miss Macpherson, "we must
put the fear of death upon him, Castleleathers.  You are a very
large, powerful man, as great in the chest as Muckle John
himsel"--she paused, eyeing him keenly--"my certes," she cried, "but
there's a notion for you ... could ye no let on you were Muckle John?"

"I ... Muckle John?  _My dear lady_..."

"You are fatter than he and without his spirit of course, but how can
the Duke tell that?  I have a friend inside the Fort, a Macpherson,
third cousin to my mother's step-daughter and a douce quiet man.  He
would do what he can though he has a sound respect for his neck."

"I am with him there," sighed Castleleathers.  "I hope, madam, that
you propose nothing rash."

"My man," she said stoutly, "when my blood's up I stick at nothing,
be it Duke or gibbet."

After that there fell a most melancholy silence.  The major, who had
hoped to spend a peaceful old age, and who had stepped like a cat
among puddles during the last disturbance, wished Muckle John far
enough and Miss Macpherson much farther.

The whole heart of the warm fire (and it was a chill day) seemed to
have fallen into thin ashes.  He shivered dismally and took a dreary
relish in praying that he might catch his death of cold.

Once he screwed his eye slowly about and let it rest moodily upon
Miss Macpherson.  But she was absorbed in her scheming, and that is a
game that comes painfully to untutored persons.

"I see nothing for it," she said at last, "but just to shoot him."

"The Duke?" gasped Castleleathers.

"Who else--he'd be no loss.  There's little of the William Wallace in
you, my man."

"I am not wanting in personal courage," groaned Castleleathers,
"indeed, I have seen service abroad, but this is beneath me,
madam--quite beneath me."

Miss Macpherson leaped at a grim jest to bring him to his senses.

"There'll be nothing beneath ye if you don't," she said swiftly.

He recoiled from such a pleasantry.  He had always deplored the
brutality of utter frankness.

"Who knows," he said thoughtfully, "but a little playful threatening
might not win our purpose, just a pistol waving carelessly in the
hand, and a claymore at the side, the iron hand under the velvet
glove, madam--ye take me?"

"I'll take ye right enough," said Miss Macpherson, "if Rob's life
depends on us two, there'll be no shirking."

"If only my heart were in the work," sighed the major pensively, "I
would not care a bawbee for the Duke or ony body.  Could you not get
in touch with Muckle John, the Duke is feared of him belike..."

"My man," broke in Miss Macpherson, "you are slow in the uptake,
_you_ are to be Muckle John."

He raised his head at that in a speechless tragedy of silence.

"_Me?_" he whispered.  "_Me Muckle John_--oh, what is this nonsense
you propose?"

"I have not decided upon it at random," she replied, "and it seems
practicable.  I have some knowledge of the Duke's habits, and let us
but once get him alone and we will force him to sign a pardon for
Rob.  He goes south soon, so we must act at once.  You,
Castleleathers, must wrap yersel' up in a plaid to your nose and when
we find him by himsel' you shall threaten his life."

"But you--where will you be?"

"I shall be watching ye--never fear--meet me to-morrow and we'll
journey south.  The final plans I'll devise, and dinna fail me or
I'll tell the Duke how ye knew Lovat himsel', and they'll take ye to
London as a witness."

"No, no," cried the major in a panic of fright, "I will be there
never fear, but it's like I'll see London in a very different
capacity."




CHAPTER XXI

THE CAPTURE OF LORD LOVAT

As weeks passed on and still the searchers did not come Lord Lovat's
hopes rose, and schemes no doubt began to run through his mind for a
continuance of the struggle or a reconciliation with the Government.
It may have occurred to him to send a diplomatic message to the Duke
of Cumberland at Fort Augustus, but there is no evidence to show
whether he took any definite steps until it was too late.

For long after the fateful visit of Murray of Broughton he had been
prepared for immediate flight, but as time passed and nothing
occurred to alarm him he took to sitting in the sun or playing a hand
of cards, or brooding inside the cottage upon the transience of all
human greatness.

There were with him about a score of Frasers, all armed with musket
and sword, and Bishop Hugh Macdonald, who did not desert the old man
in his hour of need.

It was on the first of June that the sloop _Furnace and Terror_
conveying a detachment of soldiers from the garrison of Fort William,
came sailing down the coast of Knoidart and Arisaig.  There they
landed soldiers who began to march inland, making for Loch Morar.

It was on the north side of the loch that they espied a man making
his way along the seashore--a very tall man who limped as he ran,
being surprised in an open patch of country.  Giving pursuit they
spread out along the hill to cut him off, but when the man on the
shore saw them he went away at a great pace, and had it not been that
the loch curves outwards so as to make escape the more difficult, he
might have gained the head of it, and won free.  To avoid falling
into their hands, however, he took to the loch and set out swimming
for an island in the middle of it, making good headway before even
they could get within shooting range.

And then, while they hunted for a boat, he scrambled upon the wooded
shore and disappeared.

Lord Lovat was sitting before his cottage as the swimmer waded
ashore.  He looked up having dozed in the sunlight and fallen asleep.

Facing him, with water dripping from his clothes, was Muckle John.

For a moment he blinked, and then perceiving that the soldiers on the
mainland were pushing a boat on to the loch he shrugged his shoulders.

"I was awaiting you," he remarked quietly, "but I did not look for
red-coats!  Even Murray, your last messenger, came alone."

Muckle John shook the water from his coat.

"Had I known you were here," he said, "I would rather have been
taken."

Lovat was greatly puzzled, so puzzled he could only gape at him.

"Come," went on Muckle John, "there is not a moment to be lost.  Get
you into a boat, and away with you.  Leave a dozen of your men here,
we can hold them back awhile.  But when you reach the mainland
consider yourself no longer safe from me."

Lovat grinned at that.

"How you fight who's to have my poor body," he replied.  "What if I
stay quietly here?  If it must be one or other, better Fort William,
where I shall at least be protected from you."

"My lord," returned Muckle John, "you estimate Fort William over
highly.  But let that pass--come, sir, if you will not move I'll put
you in a boat by force.  They are half-way across.  Will you rise or
no?"

Very slowly Lovat got upon his legs.

"I'll go," he said simply, and crossing to the other side of the
island permitted himself to be helped into a boat, and rowed to the
Arisaig side.

For the next hour there raged a battle royal between the red-coats
and the Frasers under Muckle John.  Again and again they tried to
take the island by storm but the fierce fire of the defending force
drove them back to firing over the sides of their boats, and in the
confusion no thought was given to the rear of the island and the
flight of Simon, Lord Lovat.

At last in a brief respite Muckle John ordered the Frasers to the
boats and pushing off they rowed with all haste out of range of the
island upon which the English landed in due course.

On reaching the mainland Muckle John said farewell to the Frasers and
limping into the shadows of the trees went his way.  But late that
night in a cave upon the side of Glen Morar he took the third piece
of Fraser tartan from his sporran and threw it into the fire.

"It is a reckoning," he said in his heart, "that is more fitted for
English hands than mine."


Near Meoble on the seventh day of June the soldiers came upon Lord
Lovat hiding in a hollow tree.  He had dismissed his followers in
order to lead his pursuers off the trail.  Quite alone, sitting upon
his strong box, he surrendered his sword with his customary dignity
and permitted himself to be taken on board the sloop _Furnace_.

As he was assisted up the side he encountered Captain Strange looking
over the bulwark.  Well he knew Strange's reputation as a spy and
secret agent.

"I am sorry to see your lordship in this plight," said Strange with
an undercurrent of malice in his voice.

Behind Lovat they brought his strong box, and when he saw it there he
pursed his lips, but said nothing.

"The men report they were on the trail of Muckle John a day or two
since," resumed Strange meaningly, "anything your lordship can tell
us will not be forgotten.  He is a dangerous man."

"My memory," replied Lovat slowly, "is so short that I cannot
recollect.  Was it Muckle John?  He seemed a small fair man to me,
but my eyes ye ken are no what they were."

"I understand," said Strange grimly, and led the way down to the
cabin.

There Captain Duff and Captain Ferguson were awaiting them.  And on
the table lay the strong box over which Lovat had pored so many hours
on the night of Culloden at Gortuleg.

Lovat was allowed to seat himself, and having done so appeared
oblivious to the proceedings, and seemed to doze.  In the box were
many articles of personal value to him and these the searchers passed
over.  But near to the bottom of the box was a bundle of papers, and
these they grabbed at and began to read.

At that point Lovat stirred and looking up remarked: "You will find
nothing treasonable there..." watching them with a half smile on his
lips.

But of a sudden he paled and leant forward.

In the hand of Captain Strange was a letter, in the Master of Lovat's
writing.  In some manner that fatal communication had been overlooked.

"Will you let me look at that letter?" asked the old man smoothly.

Strange hesitated and saw the tension in his eyes.

"I fear," he replied, "this must remain in the hands of the
Government."

Lovat sank into his chair and shook his great white head in a
melancholy way.

"I am too old," he said hardly above his breath.

"My lord," said Strange, "this letter is incriminating in the highest
degree.  Have you recollected yet whether it was Muckle John you met
upon the island on Loch Morar?"

Lovat put one fat hand to his ear.

"I cannot catch what you say," he remarked blandly.

Strange repeated his question.

"I am sorry," said Lovat, "but at my age deafness is very prevalent."

And so in due course they took him to Fort William, carrying him in a
litter, finding him very querulous over the bumpy places, and apt to
gibe at them in Latin to his own cynical pleasure and their vague
annoyance.




CHAPTER XXII

MISS MACPHERSON AND THE DUKE

On the brow of the high ground close to Fort Augustus there sat a
solitary man wrapped to his nose in a great Highland plaid.  Night
was falling and a thin drizzle of rain coming out of the west.  The
black outline of hills closed about the Fort as though to overwhelm
it.  No sound there was but the weary dripping of rain and the noise
of running water over stones.

The figure on the mist-ridden hill-side never moved, but remained as
lifeless as the crag behind him--part as it were of the tragic
twilight.

Down in the Fort lights flickered here and there, and a horseman
plunged out of the obscure light and entered the gates.

The man upon the hill never raised his head but watched him for all
that, the rain pouring from his bonnet to his plaid and running in
little streams upon the heather.

A bugle sounded down below.  Following hard on its muffled notes came
the clanging of the gates.

The Fort was closed for the night.

The swift darkness of a Highland night smoothed out the ragged line
of mountain, obliterating with its travelling shadows the outlines of
the desolate glen, the clumps of trees about the low-lying country
and in a flash the man upon the hill.  He had become in a breath of
time inseparably of the night itself.

Long after a clear whistle sounded from the pathway below.  It was
followed by a softer longer whistle.

With a sigh the man upon the hill gained his feet, being very stiff
and cold with waiting, and passing over the sodden heather stood
looking about him into the mist.  Presently two figures loomed into
sight.

The first of them, wrapped like the man himself in the folds of a
heavy plaid, addressed him in a familiar voice.

It was Miss Macpherson.

"Come, Castleleathers," she said, "here is the man Macpherson, he is
letting a rope over the wall, and he has arranged all.  The Duke
expects a visitor from the west this very night or maybe to-morrow
and he will be alone.  Things are no so strict as they were, and
there is a rumour that he goes south soon.  He thinks the Highlands
are crushed...."

"The German loon," snapped Castleleathers with much contempt, "he
cannot tell the difference between a Hessian and a Macdonald."

"Come," said Miss Macpherson, "and say ye do not think hardly of me
if anything goes wrong."

He took her hand and gave it a crunch.

"Tuts!" he said.  "I'm no easy to move, but I like a ploy at a time.
I feel younger to-night than I've felt this ten years.  He's only a
wee bit German after all."

Without another word they reached the Fort, and Macpherson, who
seemed a capable man though silent as a dyke, passed through the
gateway and disappeared.

They skirted the outer rampart noiselessly and taking up their stand
some hundred yards beyond the entrance gates, awaited the rope.

A few minutes later and down it came, and steadying Miss Macpherson
for fear she grew giddy and fell, they began to mount together, and
reached the top.  There all was very dark and quiet, and the mist
obscured everything outside the reach of a man's arm.

The garrison had long since grown careless now that the Highland
forces had been utterly dispersed and crushed.  Even the Duke was
growing lukewarm in persecution and anxious to bid farewell to the
land of snow and mist and hear what London had to say to him for his
brave doings.  At that very moment he sat toasting his toes before a
grand peat fire with a log or two to give it flame, a glass of mulled
wine at his elbow.

The room in which he sat was very small and compact, the shutters
drawn, and the seat in which he dozed one he had procured from the
wreckage of a chief's house--a massive cushioned chair--with a back
so high that it took a big man to see who entered the room.

He had dined as well as Highland rations would permit, and, like all
Germans, he loved his food.  He also relished the hour following his
dinner.  He had a kind of reverence for that sacred time.

To lounge before the fire on that dreary night of cold rain and mist,
a night fit only for Highland cattle and suchlike, had its
compensations.  The last few months had brought their burden of
anxiety and fatigue.  The eve of Culloden had been enough to try any
man's nerve.  Had he lost--had he been taken or killed--there is
little question that the English Crown would have changed hands.
Perhaps he had been over hard on the barbarous people who had
rebelled, but he was frightened.  Looking back on it now, he saw that
he had lost his head for a time.  And now the country was subdued.
He could return and listen to the things that London was waiting to
say.  There would be flags and banquets and honours.  England was at
his feet.  Labour accomplished successfully has, indeed, its
consolations.

He stirred the fire and listened to the crackle of the wood.  It was
a fine, brisk, homely noise on such a wretched night of driving rain
and sleet.  It was good to feel the rare glow of it on one's feet and
knees.  He wondered why it seemed so much better on a night of storm.
He hunted in his mind for a reason.  Suddenly he chuckled.  He
remembered the Young Pretender, sheltering for all he knew under a
ledge of dripping rock, or in a byre for cattle.  Bad weather cut two
ways.  It had its comforts for the victor--it lashed the fugitive
most piteously.

He laughed outright at the notion.  Where was he now, that silly
young man?  Yet not so young--his own age in solemn truth.  Then all
the more credit to himself.  Where was he now, but on some open moor
like a curlew in the night or a stag watching the way he had run.

His eyes shut and suddenly a snore rang through the firelit room.

At the same moment a tall and heavily plaided figure passed
noiselessly across the space that divided the door from the table and
stood there for a moment as though undecided in his mind what course
to take.  In the doorway there hung a heavy curtain.  Behind this
there was another form.  One could see that by the curve of it inside
the room.

On the table there lay a paper--a despatch apparently, and this the
man behind the chair looked at idly with his thoughts upon the silent
figure sunk in slumber.

But as he read he frowned, and then, very softly he gathered up the
paper and returned to the doorway where his companion appeared, and
together they passed out of sight.

In an adjoining room they paused, and together bent over the
dispatch.  It was dated two days since, from Loch Carron, and signed
by Captain Strange.  It stated that Neil Mackenzie had encountered
Muckle John and Rob Fraser in the inn of Loch Carron, and in an
attempt to capture them had suffered both in body and reputation, and
that unless he was permitted to take vengeance upon them he and his
following would cease to interest themselves in the business of the
Government further.  That Neil Mackenzie, himself, was even now
journeying to Fort Augustus to explain the matter, and that he
advised that it might reflect less on the Government if the affair
was left in Highland hands.  The remainder of the dispatch dealt with
the state of the district, the capture of Lord Lovat, and concluded
with the words: "There are reasons why it would be expedient if
neither Muckle John or Rob Fraser stood their trial, but were reduced
to silence by some other course, in fact if your Highness could see
your way to disarming their suspicions and the suspicions of the
Jacobites in some way, it would leave the road clear for Mackenzie."

"This Mackenzie," whispered Miss Macpherson, "is like to be the end
of Rob I'm thinking.  It is evident that he has suffered at the hands
of Muckle John...."

"And means mischief," added Castleleathers.

In the room down the passage the snores of the Duke rolled peacefully
on.

Miss Macpherson paused, turning the matter over in her practical mind.

"Have you ever seen this Neil Mackenzie?" she asked at last.

He shook his head.

"I never had dealings with Mackenzies," he replied.

"Then why not take his place, my man?  The Duke canna tell one tartan
from another.  Hear what he has to say.  Tell him your people are
mortally offended with Muckle John."

"But what of Mackenzie himself?"

Her face hardened.

"Mackenzie must be sent upon his business," she said, "and what is
more, he must never reach the Fort."

"One ploy at a time," said Castleleathers, "and here goes for the
first."

With that he tip-toed back and replaced the dispatch, then with a
heavy tread walked down the passage, and knocked upon the door.

"Who is there?" cried the Duke starting from sleep.

"Neil Mackenzie, your Highness."

Cumberland pushed the chair about.

In the room he saw a great man standing muffled to his face in a
plaid.  He had the bearing of a robber chief, but one never knew with
these terrible Highlanders.

"I 'ave 'eard ov you," said the Duke civilly enough, despite his
harsh Teutonic voice, "two hours since I received a despatch from
Captain Strange referring to some trouble between you and Muckle
John."

"My people," said Castleleathers, turning his face to the shadow,
"have received an affront which can only be wiped out in one way.  We
are prepared to serve the Government with loyalty and we look to your
Highness to remember it."

The Duke took up the paper and read it through very carefully.

"Zey are both dangerous Jacobites," he said, "and there are reasons
vy zis Muckle John should not stand 'is trial in London.  He knows
too much, Mr. Mackenzie.  There are things we vish to keep to
ourselves for a little--you understand?"

Castleleathers bowed his head.

"There is the boy too," he said.

Cumberland shrugged his shoulders.

"Now that Lovat is taken, I care no dings for 'im.  But he vill serve
to put you on the trail of the other."

"He is elusive, your Highness--there is no telling how we can lay
hands on him unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Your Highness could appear to have pity on his youth and issue a
pardon.  It would be an act of clemency and what followed would only
point to clan jealousy."

Cumberland frowned.  He was a straight-forward man with an aversion
for subterfuge.

"I do nod like your Highland vays," he said grumpily, "why not hang
the boy in the ordinary vay?  Muckle John is a different matter.  I
see no reason for this pardon."

Castleleathers played his last card.

"There are wheels within wheels," said he, "we know that this Muckle
John has pledged his word to preserve the life of the boy.  When we
have the boy in our hands, for he will come home on receiving his
pardon, we will have the bait for the catching of Muckle John.  Two
rebels will have gone, your Highness, and none the wiser.  There are
things this Muckle John could say that would sound badly in a
trial...."

"I know, I know," said Cumberland, ill at ease, "but surely there are
odder vays...."

Castleleathers shrugged his shoulders.

"It is all we have asked," he said, "and we are not a small clan."

The Duke noted the menace in his voice and controlled his anger with
an effort.

"At anodder time," he said, "I would see you var enough, but I am
sick to death of all this futile business and the wrangles of one
clan with another.  Have it as you will."

He strode to the table, took a piece of paper out of a drawer and
began to write upon it.

"Here," he said crossly, "is ze pardon for Rob Fraser, and now let me
hear no more of Muckle John."

"Your Highness has acted wisely," said Castleleathers smoothly, and a
minute later took his leave.

Backwards and forwards tramped the Duke of Cumberland, his thoughts
deep again upon his departure for London and the brave times ahead.
Forgotten was all the hardship of the last few months--the poor fare
and dreary weather.  He was like a man saying a glad farewell to a
desolate country of savages.


"It is but half done," whispered Castleleathers to Miss Macpherson
when they stood once more upon the heather, "he has forgotten Rob and
is like a man eaten up with longing for the south.  I've seen such
before.  There is still Mackenzie.  He may be upon us any minute, and
what is it to be, the sword or a dunt upon the head."

"A Mackenzie," remarked Miss Macpherson, like to overflow with joy at
the pardon, "is neither here nor there, but what of the swarm?  You
may kill one bee, but dinna forget the hive."

"True," said Castleleathers, "which way will he come?"

"He will come by this very road--I doubt but we'll meet him any
minute."

It was long before they heard the sound of a horse thudding up the
glen, and very soon the squelch of its feet in the sodden ground.
Instantly they crouched by the way, and then as the horseman drew
level with them they raised their heads and took him in at a glance.
He was a very heavily built man, muffled up in a riding cloak and
with a bonnet upon his head.

"A Mackenzie if ever there was one," whispered Castleleathers, and
starting up came upon him from the slope of the hill and hauled him
off his beast so that he uttered one startled cry and sprawled in the
heather with his legs in the air.  In the same grim silence,
Castleleathers was upon his chest and with a dirk at his throat.

"Is it to be the quick passage," he whispered in Gaelic, "or do you
swear to do what is said?"

There was a long silence.

Mackenzie upon his back and helpless as a child was trying to see the
tartan of the man above him.

"Neil Mackenzie," said Castleleathers, "unless you forget what
brought you here this night, you are not like to remember it at all."

"Who are you?" gasped Mackenzie, trying to see the better.

"I," replied Castleleathers, "am Muckle John."

"Muckle John?"  He doubted it, but it was black darkness where they
lay amongst the heather.

"What of the affair Loch Carron way?" continued Castleleathers.  "You
came poorly enough out of that.  But I have a mind to end it this
time.  I am not a patient man and no one has dealings against me who
does not at last regret it."

"I will go back," said Mackenzie in a heavy tone like a man beaten
once and for all.

"You must tell your people that you are satisfied with the answer the
Duke has given you."

"I will--I swear it!"

Castleleathers drew back and leaped to his feet.

"Away then!" he said, "the road to the west lies clear.  But if you
so much as dream of treachery---no power can save you."

In silence Mackenzie caught his horse and mounting it took the road
for home, all the courage gone out of him.  All that night he rode,
and the next day, and when he reached Loch Carron he gave no word at
all, but bore the aspect of a man who fears to look over his shoulder
in the gloaming.

As for Castleleathers and Miss Macpherson, being both people over
middle life, they made their way stiffly homewards to an inn near
Fort Augustus.

It was over a basin of hot brose that he turned to her.

"I am past ploys like these," he said, "but it smacks of the old
days."

"The young ones are no like the old ones," sighed Miss Macpherson.

"None so old," rejoined Castleleathers, smiling at her suddenly.

Miss Macpherson busied herself with her plate.

"It's after Rob we must go the morn," she said.

"It has been a great night," he remarked, nodding before the fire,
"that Mackenzie was sair taken aback."

"The Duke is no sae difficult to manage as folk say," hazarded Miss
Macpherson.

"Young blood," grunted Castleleathers, "he only needs managing."

"You're all the same," murmured Miss Macpherson slyly.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR MEN

Of the travelling of Rob to the south there is little enough to tell
until he reached Rannoch, the country of Robertsons and Stewarts, and
other clans more like to pick a pocket than to cry God-speed.

On the evening following the departure of Muckle John, Rob had
bartered with a pedlar upon the road for a suit of old clothes, and
too fearful of the future to refuse the exorbitant price demanded, he
gave him some silver and buried his kilt in a mountain pool.

And so, with more confidence, he stepped out towards the south, and
reached Loch Linnhe without misadventure.  It was his intention to
avoid all the district about Fort William by taking boat to the other
side.

In this manner he passed through Glencoe and travelling by day,
reached the head of Loch Rannoch in a dusk of drizzling rain.

Now the country that includes Rannoch, Lochaber and Breadalbane had
no rival for insubordination in those days.  It swarmed with broken
men--cattle thieves and desperadoes of all kinds owning fealty to
none but their own good pleasure, and only Jacobite so far as it was
politic to be, and with an unsleeping eye to the plunder of the
Lowlands.

It was with anxious steps, therefore, that Rob approached a solitary
huddle of buildings lying in a snug hollow of the hills, thatched to
the colour of the brown trees, with here and there a patch of young
heather over the top of it.  It was strangely hidden and quiet, with
all the look of an old inn fallen on evil days.

For long Rob stared at it with dubious eyes; there was so little life
about it, and so much that was mysteriously ominous.  Though drenched
with the thin hill rain, craving for food and shelter, he was in a
half mind to continue his way, when the face of a man looked through
the small hole in the side that served for a window--a green-white
face it was, with staring unwavering eyes.

But where there was a living soul there would be food and shelter and
Rob stepped forward, forgetting his secret fear.  Inside the place,
however, there was no sound, but only the monotonous dripping of
water upon the muddy floor.  In the centre of the room there hung a
great pot upon a chain from the roof, and the place was so full of
peat reek that it took him a few minutes to see where the man had
gone.

Against the wall were layers of rushes, and a narrow stairway led up
to a kind of loft about six feet above the floor.  Under the loft
were the cows.  He could hear them coughing fitfully through the
wooden partition.

It was a poor enough place and leaking from a score of holes, but it
was warm, and so tired was he that he sat down before the peats and
warmed his hands.

Presently the door opened and the man re-entered.  Rob wondered how
he had managed to come that way.  He started when he saw Rob, but
wished him good-day civilly enough and inquired if he could provide
him with anything.  He was a sallow, secretive looking fellow, with a
tangled beard and hair and a terrible squint.

"You are passing south maybe," he said, busying himself about the
place.

With some uneasiness Rob replied that he was journeying to Edinburgh
seeking employment.

"It is a Stewart you will be?" remarked the man, squinting terribly.

"No," said Rob, "I am a Fraser."

"A Fraser," he echoed, "I take it you can pay your way."

"I can that," said Rob with some indignation for fear he should be
sent back into the rain, and with a foolish notion that the man might
be of assistance he drew out a dozen silver coins and clinked them in
his open hand.

In the blue smoke of the place the man paused.  He stood perfectly
still with his ghastly squint accentuated.  Then putting some meat
into the pot he set the lid on, and going to the door spoke to some
one outside.  This he did so casually that Rob suspected nothing, but
sat dozing before the warm glow, utterly spent and stupid with
fatigue.

It must have been about eight of the clock that he finished his
supper, and asked to be shown to a place to sleep.  This the
innkeeper did very readily, lighting him up the narrow stairway into
the loft and pointing to a heap of dry heather in a corner.  Out in
the night the rain was falling dismally and below him Rob could hear
the warm and comfortable breathing of the cows.  Yet, tired though he
was, a curious dread of falling asleep came on him.  There was
something about the place that set his nerves on edge.  Was it the
eerie silence of it--lost amongst the lonely elbow of the loch?  But
that was nothing new to him.  Was it the strange catlike movements of
the man with the squint?  But he was probably a decent enough
creature unused to strangers.  Or was there danger lurking in the
place, memories of dreadful things done there in the black darkness?
His hand instinctively sought the dirk at his side.

_It was gone_!

In an instant he was upon his feet.  Whether the man below had stolen
it or not he dare not take the risk of staying in that lonely place
unarmed.  He must make his way into the night and trust to fortune
that he would evade pursuit should there be any.

Very softly he felt his way about, hunting for a window or trapdoor.
But there was no way of escape.  Under the door leading to the
stairway shone a rim of light thrown up by the peat fire below, and
in one place where the wood had been eaten by mice there was a round
hole large enough to command the room beneath.  He lay at his length
and peered down.

To his horror there were four men gathered about the fire--the
innkeeper and three ragged, crouching figures, with cruelty and
murder written all over their faces.  They were dressed in a tartan
so filthy and stained with rain and mud that Rob was ignorant of
their clan.  They were shaggy as cattle beasts, dirty,
smoke-blackened fellows, below the average size, active as wild cats,
and chattering in whispers like a crew of unwashed monkeys.  Even in
the remnants of the Chevalier's army Rob had not encountered such as
these.  Only in Lochaber and Rannoch could such scourings of the
clans be found until one met the red Macgregors which Providence
forfend.

The innkeeper had his back turned to the stairway, but by the motion
of his hands Rob read what he said like an open page.  He was telling
them of the silver that he, in his rashness, had exposed.

In the red firelight Rob could see their eyes gleam beneath their
matted hair.  With hypnotized gaze he watched a man unsheath his dirk
and make a gesture significant enough, and with a gurgle in the
throat requiring no explanation.  So that was to be the end of it
all--a secret murder by a band of lawless caterans ready to prey upon
every stranger luckless enough to beg a night's lodging.  He would
never see Muckle John again.  It made him wonder what he would have
done to save his life.  Muckle John always had a way.

[Illustration: HE WATCHED ONE OF THE MEN UNSHEATH HIS DIRK AND MAKE A
GESTURE SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH.]

Down below the men had risen to their feet.  He saw them standing in
their own steam, their heads close together, and their beards wagging
as they whispered.  Then one by one they approached the stairway.  A
wild terror seized him at that.  The soft pat of their brogues upon
the rungs of the ladder and the creak of it under their weight was
like to make him scream.

Starting back he stood upon the trap door in the empty hope that they
would not be able to lift it.  A moment, and he felt it give a faint
heave under him.  It was delivered gently, as though the man on the
ladder suspected it would be stiff or difficult to push back.

And then there was absolute silence.

Did they suspect that he was awake?  Rob listened intently.  But what
he heard was the innkeeper softly ordering them back, and at that
moment there sounded outside in the night a man's voice calling.

Once more Rob lay upon the floor and peered below.  Around the fire
the men were sitting as before.  In the doorway the innkeeper was
standing with the firelight upon his back.  Outside there was the
humid noise of a horse losing its hold in sopping ground, and again a
voice called--

"Can you give me shelter?"

With a backward glance the innkeeper disappeared, leaving those
crouching figures utterly silent.  To Rob a wild flash of hope flamed
suddenly.  Who could say but this might be a friend in distress?

He heard the innkeeper open the door in the byre below him and stall
the horse; but he never moved in his eagerness to watch who should
enter the place.  Suddenly a man looked in at the group about the
fire, and hesitated as though he wished himself back upon the road.
Then, entering, he drew off his cloak.

It was John Murray of Broughton.

The three men round the fire made no motion, threatening or
otherwise.  They crouched on their haunches as before, watching him
under their shaggy eyebrows.

Murray, who was no coward in ordinary circumstances, but only highly
strung and with the Lowland caution, stood out of their range
obviously ill at ease, awaiting the innkeeper's return.

To Rob he looked very worn and hollow-cheeked and his clothes cheap
and ill-fitting like the dress of a small Ayrshire farmer.  A sword
was at his side and there was a bulge in his coat-pocket like the
butt end of a pistol, but Rob took little comfort from that, knowing
how poor a defence a single man like Murray would put up under a
swift attack.

The innkeeper re-entered the room and, shutting the door, barred it
across with a heavy slab of wood.  For weal or woe they were there
till morning.

He motioned Murray forward saying nothing, and the men about the fire
made room for him, watching him all the time as dogs eye a stranger,
ready at a word to fling themselves upon his throat.

Murray hesitated before he sat down and cast one fleeting glance
about the room.  A sudden inclination came to Rob to shout a warning
and leap down to join him before it was too late.  But he knew that
they would complete their evil work before even he could take a part.

The innkeeper stirred the iron pot and drew out a hank of meat upon a
dirk.  This he handed to Murray, who took it in a dejected fashion
and began to eat, and very quietly, while Rob watched him in a stupor
of horror, he stepped behind him.  But he made no attack.  Instead he
shook his head at the others and jerked a thumb towards the room
where Rob lay watching them.  They evidently purposed to kill them
both at one and the same time.

Underneath him the horse coughed and rattled its bit.  Only an inch
or two of wood between him and safety--only a thin decayed layer of
wood.  A rat was gnawing in a far corner; he heard it squeak in the
darkness.  Down below they were sitting quite speechless about the
fire, waiting for the newcomer to seek his sleep.  Murray was white
and brooding, knowing no Gaelic, certain that danger was all about
him, nodding with weariness and ever pulling up for dread of what was
biding its time to strike.  In haste Rob examined the flooring of the
loft.  His fingers ran along the fringes of the boards.  No flaw, no
splintered grain, no crumbling of worm-eaten plank.  Still the rat
gnawed with steady persistence in the far corner.  Perhaps there was
a way there.  He groped about, and his hands encountered a sack
propped up against the wall.  It was very heavy but he moved it
gradually.  The rat scuttled away and dropped out of the room.  He
heard it fall upon the soft mud below, and into his face there rose
the warm smell of cows.

Breathlessly he examined the flooring behind the sack, and at the
corner where the thing had stood his hands groped in vacancy.  There
was a hole a foot in breadth.  Without delay he gripped the frayed
edge, where the rat had gnawed, in his strong muscular fingers and,
setting his feet against the wall opposite him, strained to his
fullest power.

With a sharp crack it broke away--a good two feet.  Underneath the
horse snorted with sudden fear; it seemed to be only a few inches
beneath his hand.  Lying full length, he stretched down into the
pitch darkness and touched its ear, soothing it with a whisper.

The way lay clear.

Then, regaining his feet, he stole back to the other end of the place
and looked down upon the men below.  It was a curious, somewhat
pathetic sight that met his eyes.  Murray was upon his feet and
bidding them good night.  He looked as though he knew in his heart
what deed they intended, and was on the point of appealing to their
chivalry (if they had any), and yet too proud to do so.  In the end
he only bowed and, taking a rushlight from the innkeeper, climbed
slowly up the stairway and lifted the trap-door.

Now it was evident to Rob that if Murray, unnerved by illness and
fatigue came upon him suddenly, he might hesitate or utter a cry, and
for this reason he hid himself behind the sack until he was in the
room and the trap-door shut, when he whispered, "Mr. Murray, Mr.
Murray," as gently as he could.

There was a sharp sound like a gasp, and Murray replied in the same
tone, "Who is it?"

With his finger on his lips, Rob appeared before him.

"Quick!" he whispered, "lift the sack with me and put it upon the
trap-door.  It will serve for a few minutes.  They are cut-throats
down there."

For an instant Murray fumbled with his sword and then, controlling
himself, he aided Rob, though his strength was not of much value at
such a time.

Fortunately for them, the four men below were hard at it together,
whispering in Gaelic, and evidently in high feather over the business
ahead, so that they did not hear the moving of the sack.  That
accomplished, Rob drew Murray to the far corner.

"Your horse is below," he said; "drop down and soothe him while I
wait in case they come.  Give me your sword.  Lead him out upon the
road and I'll join you there."

It was strange to take orders from a boy, but Murray had no option in
such circumstances.  He was no Highlander and had no foolish pride.
Without a word, he slipped into the blackness of the stall, and Rob
heard him patting his beast and turning it towards the door.

At that same moment however there came a noise at the sack that sent
Rob across the floor with the naked sword-blade in his hand.

The trap-door lifted very slowly; a hand crept under its ledge and
gripped the rough boarding a few inches from Rob.  There was not a
moment to delay.  Falling upon his knees, he lunged into the darkness
below.  Instantly there rose a most horrible cry, something fell with
a dull thud, and the trap-door banged upon the blade shivering it
from the hilt downwards.

For his folly Rob was defenceless again.

But there was far worse to come, for at the noise of that terrible
stricken voice there came a wild plunging of a horse outside and the
dying thud of feet.  Murray of Broughton was gone.  Perhaps his beast
bolted with terror; perhaps he waited and dreaded that Rob was
killed--who can tell?  He was of all men least able to endure
suspense.

At that calamity there came to Rob a wild terror of the place and a
panic to be gone.  He reached the hole in the corner and dropped down
upon the mud below.  The fresh rain was blowing in upon his face from
the open doorway where Murray had passed.  He was out in it with a
rush and into the friendly darkness, where he halted.

No movement came from the lonely inn--no cries or noise of any kind,
only a brooding, death-like quiet as though the place were
uninhabited or thronged with ghosts.  In a kind of ghastly horror, he
hesitated and then stole back, overcome by a curiosity too
overwhelming to be crushed.  Back he came and peered into the byre.
But there was no sound--not even a rat gnawing at the wood.  It was
cold and forsaken.  He crept round the outer wall, safe in the night
whatever might occur, and stared at the black door where he had
entered at the dusk, seeing no gleaming firelight on the wall.

The rain had stopped of a sudden, and a faint glimmer of starlight
showed in the doorway black and void.  There was no door but only a
huddle of stones.  Nearer he crept, until at last he could look into
the room itself.

And at that he took to his heels and ran blindly into the
night--anywhere so long as he was well away from that grim and
desolate house.

For in the room there was no fire, no staircase nor any sign of
living soul.  Nothing but an empty, roofless ruin under the open sky.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE END OF A TALE

All that weeping night of rain Rob travelled towards Glen Lyon glad
for every foot of heather between him and the weird house upon the
loch.  Passing through the country of the Mackenzies he reached
Killin, and there fell in with a band of gipsies sitting round their
camp fire.  They numbered about a score--men, women, and little brown
children--and they welcomed him to share their meat in the kindliest
manner, asking no questions and displaying no curiosity in his
affairs.  Only the chief knew Gaelic, and he was all the more ready
to hear the news of the north from Rob, who gathered that his
affection for the red-coats was by no means warm.

Rob accepted his kindness with a qualm of self reproach.  It had
suddenly occurred to him that in accepting such a wealth of
hospitality he was endangering them to the vengeance of the
Government.  Such a prospect was not to be contemplated.

"Let me speak to you alone," he said to the chief.

In the privacy of the tent he told him all.

"I will not attempt to deny," said he, "that there are those who
would give much to capture me, not for any importance I may have, but
because of another...."

The gipsy followed his words with expressionless attention.  Then
rising he drew a paper from his pocket.

"Read," he said simply.

It was a Government notice for posting up under gibbets and suchlike,
intimating that anyone who laid one, Rob Fraser, by the heels, dead
or alive, would receive a reward of fifty pounds.  Rob turned cold at
the dreadful wording of it.  It described him minutely, and went on
to say that he was last seen with the notorious rebel called "Muckle
John."

"You knew?" said he at last.

The other laughed softly.

"What does it matter?" he replied, "but I thank you for your
confidence, and when next you see Muckle John say that Gloom the
Gipsy has not forgotten him."

"Are you a friend of Muckle John?"

"I may be counted such, though he has no lack of friends--or enemies."

"But I cannot imperil your people, it is more than is reasonable."

"Rob Fraser," said Gloom very gravely, "you are as good as taken.
The soldiers are watching for you on the Highland Line, and from here
to Stirling is alive with spies.  To-morrow we will carry you through
Balquhidder, for if you fell foul of the wild caterans there it would
be a short shift for you."

"Balquhidder--I have heard the name...."

He laughed outright at that.

"It's clear ye are north country bred," he said, "there are more
thieves Balquhidder way than in Lochaber itself."

Thankful indeed for his good fortune Rob bade his friend good-night,
and lying down before the fire was soon fast asleep.

With the dawn they were marching towards Crianlarich where they took
to the heather, and crossing the hills came down upon Loch Doine at
the head of Balquhidder.  As they streamed into the flat country at
the top of the loch they passed a square thatched house at the foot
of the slope facing the amber stream.

"That is Inverlochlarig where Rob Roy died," said Gloom.  "I mind him
well, a great red man with a heart of gold.  But his sons are
corbies, and I am hoping we do not meet them."

All up the side of the stream the cottages of the Macgregors
clustered, with the thin veil of peat reek hanging above them in a
kind of haze.

Without halting they passed over the flat marshy land that lay
between the two ranges of mountain, and approached a small compactly
built house upon the other side of the burn.

"We will stop here for the night," said Gloom, "and maybe Invernenty
will see us.  He is no friend of the Macgregors, being son of John
Maclaren who was murdered by Robin Oig."

Leaving Rob he crossed the narrow stream and knocking upon the door
exchanged some words with a woman who opened it.  But to all that he
said she only shook her head, and he returned somewhat discomfited.

"She says that Invernenty is not at home," he said, calling him by
the name of his place, "and yet I am doubting her unless he is taken."

Without delay they set their camp, and during the day several
Macgregors came over and eyed them secretly, red men in a red
tartan--querulous, hot-blooded fellows.

Rob, ill at ease in a strange country, kept in the background, but in
the afternoon seeing a great crowd of them gathered about a place up
the glen he accompanied Gloom, being wearied of sitting alone.

The Macgregors with a sprinkling of Maclarens were handling a curious
smooth stone with holes for a finger and a thumb, and competing with
one another in lifting it upon a small rock that stood in close
proximity.

A tall dark sombre-looking man leaning upon a rude crutch and with a
pale harassed face was regarding the scene from a little distance.
He was dressed in riding clothes and with a greatcoat buttoned up
closely as though he were ill.  Rob was on the point of asking who he
was when he became aware of the other's close scrutiny.

There was something dangerously interested in the manner he
stared--taking him in with his dark cunning eyes, measuring his
height in his mind--the set of his face, conjuring up every detail
circumspectly.

"Gloom," said Rob in a whisper, "there's a man up on the brae has a
notion who I am."

Very casually the gipsy turned about.

"Misfortune take it," he murmured, "but it is James More, son of Rob
Roy, new come from Culloden.  He was wounded, ye mind."

Presently without a word or any sign James Macgregor moved painfully
away and entered Inverlochlarig.

"Come, Rob," said Gloom, "I would not trust that man a foot.  He is
up to mischief, and it's like enough we were better over Glenbucket
than here."

Evening drew on, but there was no sign of trouble.  At the rising of
the moon, however, a tall gaunt woman with a plaid over her head
asked for a word with the gipsy.  They went apart together and
conferred in low tones.  And then as silently as she had come the
woman vanished into the shadows.

"Rob," said Gloom, "there's danger threatening--when was there not in
this wild country?  Who do you think that was?"

Rob shook his head.

"Who but John Maclaren himself, new come from giving the red-coats
the go-bye on the road to Carlisle.  He says James is up to his
pranks, and that the clan are scared to death at the very sight of
you in the heart of their country.  It is away we must go, Rob," and
summoning his men they prepared to set out, leaving their camp fires
burning in case their flight was suspected.  Over the cleft in the
hills they went, and crossing the top of Beinn-an-Shithein, came down
on Strathyre and Castle Murdoch.

"There is a strange man lives there," said the gipsy to Rob, "it's
like enough he will send us about our business should we stop."

"Who are ye?" snarled a voice at that moment from the wall of the
place, "ye canna bide hereabouts."

The moon had risen and under its clear rays Rob looked up and saw a
white-haired man watching them from the rampart.

"What kind of night skulking is this?" he cried.

"I am Gloom," replied the gipsy.

"And who is that with you, he is none of your people."

"He is a friend, Murdoch."

"Bring him here--this is an ill time for friends," and he disappeared.

A few minutes later they saw him crossing the courtyard, a lamp
swinging in his hand, limping through a shortness of his right leg,
and frowning at them as he peered through the shattered iron gates.

"Come nearer," he rasped, "you boy there with the borrowed claes."

Rob took a step towards him so that the light streamed down upon his
features.

"Humph!" grunted Murdoch, cocking his eyes at the gipsy, "it is queer
company ye're taken up with, my man.  Do ye ken who that is with his
innocent face and braw blue eyes?  That's the lad of Muckle John."

"Whist!" warned Gloom, "the very rocks have ears."

At that moment a little girl came running over the courtyard.

"What did ye say of Muckle John?" she asked.

"Gang to your bed, Ethlenn," screamed the old man.  "Janet, away with
the bairn."

A woman ran out into the twilight.  There was a noise of sudden
crying and a door banged.

"Can we bide the night here?" asked the gipsy, but with poor enough
heart in it.

"Bide the night," echoed Murdoch sharply, "bide the night in company
with yon?  Can ye--by the dogs of Lorn I think ye're crazed.  What
have I ever done to ye that ye should mak' me sic a daft-like
proposal?"

"It is no use, Rob," said Gloom sadly.

With a kind of horror at his own notoriety Rob turned away and passed
down the slope.  He heard the voice of Murdoch raised in shrill anger
and falling into nothingness on the wind.  Behind him trooped the
gipsies, uncomplaining but dispirited, streaming towards Strathyre.

And so passing through the sleeping village they reached the narrow
defile at the head of Loch Lubnaig, and ascending the hillside passed
a dreary night.

It was just before the dawn of the next day that Rob came to a
decision, which appeared to him the only wise and honest thing to do.
He wrote a brief note to Gloom thanking him for his great kindness,
and stating that he would be far towards the south by the morning.

Then stepping between the gipsies' sleeping forms he came down upon
the loch and set off at a trot for Kilmahog.


Many days afterwards--days full to the brim of danger and heavy
travelling, Rob reached Edinburgh and wandered about the High Street.
He had managed to purchase another set of clothes, and for the
present he deemed himself safe, and on the morrow he would keep his
tryst with Muckle John at Leith.

It was about midday that he saw a great coach lumbering over the rude
cobbles jolting and groaning, and about it a party of dragoons.  A
sudden fear gripped him that perchance this was a prisoner, who
knew--perhaps Muckle John himself.

He pushed his way to the front of the crowd.  Nearer clattered the
dragoons, a braver sight than when they had entered that same street
in the year '45.  The horses straining at the coach were level with
him now, and he bent forward, his eyes glued to the window.  It was
but a flash, but he never forgot it.

For lolling forward, leering grotesquely either in derision or some
kindred emotion, sat Simon, Lord Lovat, bound for London and Tower
Hill.

His small shrewd eyes travelling over the crowd settled for an
instant upon Rob, and contracted suddenly as though he half
recollected him, but was not sure.  Then he was gone, and that was
the last of the Fraser.

The scene sobered what little foolhardiness there was left in Rob.
It made him walk less abroad.  The arm of the law was long, but the
arm of the Government was longer.

More than once he had a curious intuition on that afternoon that he
was being followed.  It might be only an accident, but he had run
into two slouching frowsy rascals on two separate occasions, and each
time they had stared very hard and looked back at him over their
shoulders.

At last overcome by fear of capture he had taken to his heels and run
up one close and down another, being quite unfamiliar with the City,
but only anxious to shake off any shadowing.  After he had doubled
and dodged for a full half-hour he took cover upon an ancient
stairway beside the White Horse Inn, and there he waited to see what
would happen and whether there were really any upon his trail.  It
was about five minutes later that the noise of a man panting up the
lane set him keeking down to see who came so hastily.  To his dismay
it was one of the loafers of the afternoon, and hard on his heels the
other.  They passed at a run and their footsteps died away.

Then speeding in the opposite direction Rob found a lodging in
another inn, and slept far into the following day--the day on which
he was to meet Muckle John and win to freedom at last.  After all the
turmoil and distress of the weeks following Culloden, it was a
strange enough sensation to think of the great towns ahead in Holland
or France, where there was no dire necessity to keep one eye over
your shoulder and the other cocked upon the end of the street, and
where a Jacobite was not considered food for the nearest gallows tree.

So thinking (and yet with misgiving for all that) Rob passed cannily
out of Edinburgh and along the way to Leith, and again the dread fear
that he was being followed took possession of him.  The sun was
falling when he saw the lonesome gibbet tree stuck up against the
skyline.  On it the body of some luckless creature was swinging in
its chains--he could just catch the dreary creaking on the wind.

He looked backward for the twentieth time.  But all the desolate
landscape seemed empty of living soul or beast.

And yet he could have sworn that he had seen a head dodge behind the
tussock of coarse rank grass just on the top of the mound.  He was so
sure of it he ran back, but when he reached it there was nothing.
Then bending as a true hillsman reads the ground he saw the fresh
mark of a boot in the wet sand.

There was danger lurking amongst the dunes, and still no sign of
Muckle John.

Out on the Firth of Forth a ship was running up her canvas to the
breeze, and it set him wondering in an idle fashion whether Muckle
John might not be already aboard starting for France.

And then the sunlight faded and the greyness of the gloaming crept up
from the sea.

Clink, clink, went the chains upon the forlorn gibbet tree, and with
a deeper rustier note as the wood groaned and shuddered in its joints.

He walked slowly up the sloping sandy path.  Above him, black above
the evening sky swung the dead man--some poor soul less guilty of
wrong maybe than he himself.

Then sitting upon a heap of sand beside the dreary burden with its
dismal refrain he waited for what might befall.  That there was
danger afoot he knew instinctively, but his great reliance upon
Muckle John seemed to almost dissipate such perils.  There was a
mountain of strength in Muckle John.

The darkness was falling fast when of a sudden, like the spring of a
leopard for swiftness, a man was upon his back and with the crook of
his arm around his throat.  Uttering one faint cry Rob tumbled
backwards, and before he could struggle to his feet, his legs were
gripped by another man and a third flung himself bodily upon his
chest.

As far as Rob was concerned the question of France was over and done
with.  It was a sad enough ending to all his brave adventures to be
bowled over by three vagabonds on Leith sands, and trussed like a hen.

But there was more in it than that.

For out of the twilight came a tall man walking at his leisure, and
even before he spoke Rob knew him for Captain Strange.

"Well," he said quietly, "so this is the end, Rob, and what a braw
place to be sure.  It was almost tempting providence with that
clinking cratur to warn ye."

He motioned to the men to leave them, and sitting down began to talk
in an affable pleasant manner as though he were discussing the
weather or the price of stocks.

"Hark ye, Rob," he said, "I ken fine who ye're waiting for.  It's
Muckle John no less, and what I have in my mind I must say quickly.
Now we want this little business carried through expeditiously and
with discretion.  We do not want any pranks, mind ye, and ye ken
Muckle John as a man as full of tricks as a monkey.  I want ye to sit
here, Rob, until he comes, and promise me no to say a word to set him
thinking.  If ye carry this out I will say what I can for you when
the time comes."

"I will shout a warning while I have breath in my body," cried Rob.

"Very good," replied Strange, "very good; in that case I will gag you
surely enough, and here goes."

With that he stuffed a pad of cloth into his mouth and fastened a
bandage round his cheeks.  Then springing to his feet he listened
intently.  Very faintly the sound of whistling drifted up from the
sands.  Up above the gibbet chains creaked to and fro, and in the
tragic silence of the twilight the man came trudging to his doom.

Strange darted into the dunes for his men: It was like to go hard
with Muckle John.

It was all over as the newcomer stooped over Rob.  With a muffled
shout he fell and rose again, and writhing spasmodically was stunned
to silence.  From the size of him Rob knew it could be none other
than Muckle John.

"A light!" cried Strange, in high glee over it all.

They swung a lantern nearer and turned their prisoner over upon his
back.

And there, glaring up at them with apoplectic rage lay James Fraser
of Castleleathers.  It was a moment full of gall for Strange.

As for Castleleathers, worthy man, being much bruised and scratched
and with a bump like an egg on his head, it was a mercy that he had
no breath to express his feelings on the matter.  But when he did he
only added to Strange's mortification.  For on hearing of the plan to
capture Muckle John which (being a professed Hanoverian) he could not
criticize adversely, he expressed a deep regret that he had not
beguiled the rebel with his conversation, having met him upon the
road a mile back.

"A mile back," cried Strange, "then he will come here yet."

"No," said Castleleathers in his methodical tone, "no, I think not,
for he has boarded a ship for France."

Strange uttered an exclamation of disgust.

"I told you he would throw you over, Rob, when the time came," said
he with a sour look.

Certainly it appeared like it.

But Castleleathers had more to say.

"Will you give me a hearin'," he broke in peevishly.  "Muckle John
would have come, but I counselled him not."

"You did?" screamed Strange.  "But this is open treason, Major
Fraser."

"No," said Castleleathers stoutly, "oh no, I assure you there is no
more loyal servant of the King than I.  But I saw no service that he
could render Rob, except to endanger him as an associate of a
notorious Jacobite."

"Indeed," said Strange, "but Rob is none so far removed from that
himsel'.  He is like enough to take the place of the hanged one above
ye, Major Fraser."

"Pardon me, no," replied Castleleathers blandly, "here I have a
pardon for Rob signed by the Duke himsel'."

"It's a forgery," cried Strange hotly, "let me see it."

"In my hands, Captain Strange--no, stand back a wee--hold the light
higher, now can ye see?  Will you dispute that, my man?  There is his
royal signature, bless him!"

Strange eyed it gloomily.

"There is something queer about this," he said.  "I will see the
Duke."

Castleleathers smiled.

"All the way to London?" he asked.  "The Duke will not thank ye."

Over their heads the haunted chains jingled merrily.  It must have
been a rare joke to send them clinking like that.  Suddenly from the
ends of nowhere there was a sound like a smothered laugh.

"What was that?" whispered Strange, looking furtively about.

"I heard nothing," replied Castleleathers, then starting to his feet,
"but surely there is the noise of a horse."

"A horse," said Strange, "who knows it may be Muckle John himself."

"No," corrected Castleleathers composedly, "no, I think not.  I
think--in fact I am sure--it is my wife."

"Your wife!" cried Rob, who had worked the gag out at last, and who
had been apparently overlooked in the discussion.

Castleleathers switched about.

"Bless us," he said, "I had clean forgotten ye, Rob, you were so
quiet.  What's amiss with you?"

"I am bound hand and foot."

"Mercy me," said Castleleathers, "but you have a queer way with you,
Captain Strange.  There ye are, Rob," and he set him free, "and now
what's there so wonderful in my having a wife?  She's your ain aunt
Macpherson.  It's my nephew ye are, Rob, and if I ever hear of this
Jacobite business again I'll skelp ye mair than she ever did, poor
woman."

It was indeed Miss Macpherson (or rather Mrs. James Fraser of
Castleleathers), and at the sight of her Strange bowed very coldly,
remembering the escape from Fort Augustus, and calling his men
disappeared towards Edinburgh.

"Sit ye doon a moment," said Castleleathers, "though it's a dreary
enough place for family reunions."

But Rob only stared out to sea where the moon was pouring a broad
pathway of silver upon the quivering water.

"Did Muckle John not give ye a message for me?" he asked.  "It will
be long ere we see him again."

Castleleathers took a keek over his shoulder.

"To be honest, Rob," he said, "I never saw him at all.  Maybe he's
coming or maybe he is no sae far off as ye think."

"He was the queer yin," remarked Mrs. Fraser, "though he had a way
with him, mind ye.  That night in Inverness, Rob--that was a scene.
There was I dancing like a young yin, and all to a scrap of a tune he
was whistling something like this..." and she tried to whistle, but
failed most signally.

"No," said Rob, "it was more like this," but he had not the twist of
it at all.

"Ye're all out together," cried a voice in the night.  "Was it no
this?" and the west wind carried the rhythm of the reel into the
night.

"Where is he?" whispered Castleleathers, looking about.

"It's no canny," said his wife with a shiver.

"Muckle John!" cried Rob.

The tune stopped, and suddenly as it were in the midst of them with
the ghastly thing over their heads creaking and clacking, the voice
of Muckle John was singing, and these were the words he sang:

  _Swing--swing in the hail and snow,
  Dead banes clinkin' frae dawn to nicht,
  Creak--creak to the hoodie crow
  From rising sun to grey moonlicht._

  _A lark soars blithe frae the sands o' Leith,
  "Life's but a braw claymore," sang he.
  "Death is nought but an empty sheath"
  Creak, creak, creak, groans the Gibbet Tree._

  _The waves gang jinkin' ower the shore,
  A seagull laughs as he skims the sea,
  But a feckless loon will laugh nae more
  While he swings to and fro on the Gibbet Tree._

  _The nicht creeps back o'er the cold grey tide,
  The wind sighs over the barren lea,
  Oh wad that the dark could for ever hide
  The feckless loon on the Gibbet Tree._

  _There comes a lad at the turn o' nicht,
  "It's hereabouts that he said he'd be--
  There's a ship at sea with a golden licht,
  But no Muckle John 'neath the Gibbet Tree."_

  _Swing--swing in the hail and snow,
  Dead banes clinkin' frae dawn to nicht,
  Creak--creak to the hoodie crow
  From rising sun to grey moonlicht._


It was above them up in the air or they were going mad.

Suddenly the song ceased and with a great rattle of chains the
gibbet's burden dropped with a clatter, and at that Mrs. Fraser came
dangerously near to swooning for the first and last time in her life.

[Illustration: WITH A GREAT RATTLE OF CHAINS THE GIBBET'S BURDEN
DROPPED WITH A CLATTER.]

IT WAS MUCKLE JOHN!

"Good evening to you," he cried, "and rare luck to the bride and
bridegroom.  Well, Rob, so it's fine to be a free man and a good
ending to a brave cause."

"But you, Muckle John--what of you?  Do you go to sea to-night?"

He shook his head.

"Not yet," he said, and held Rob by the hand for a moment saying
nothing.  Then taking his whistle from his pocket he broke into a
jig, and in the yellow light of the lantern he started dancing under
the empty gibbet tree.

It took doucer people than the Frasers to stand still when that kind
of thing was afoot.  Once again Rob and his aunt tripped it finely,
and Castleleathers, that mountain of flesh and brawn, was not
backward.

It was a strange sight that, with the forlorn place, and the crying
from the sea, and the blinking weird light and the black figures
skipping like ghosts beneath a starlit sky.

They danced till all the breath was clean gone out of them, and they
stopped just because the music was no longer there.  For unseen to
any Muckle John had stolen softly away playing as he went, passing
like a shadow, or a dream, or a memory, into the vast darkness.

They stood for a space catching the lingering notes of it, and then
it was gathered into the night, and became part of the sea, and the
wind, and the soft song of the rustling heath, and so was gone.

And that was the last of Muckle John.



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