Highland Legends. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder
of Macfarlane, who was, at that moment, some ten or fifteen paces before the party. Filled with horror, the men who were nearest to him sprang upon him to prevent so great a treason as the murder of their chief. Angus was felled to the ground—but his bolt had already flown—and, with a sure aim too, for down fell among the heath, weltering in his blood, and with an expiring groan, not the chief of the Macfarlanes, but one of the Lochaber men. The quick eye of Angus had detected him standing half concealed by the huge trunk of a tree, exactly in the very path of the chief. Three more steps would have brought Macfarlane within reach of the very dirk of the assassin, which was already unsheathed, and ready to have been plunged in his bosom. Amazement fell upon all of them for some moments. Macfarlane could with difficulty comprehend what had happened; but when he was at length made to understand the truth, he ran towards Angus. He was already raised in the arms of those of his friends who had so rashly judged and punished him, but who were now sufficiently ashamed and repentant of their precipitation.
“Look up, my brave Angus,” said Macfarlane to his clansman, as he began to revive; “look up to thy chief, grateful as he is for that life which thou hast preserved to him!—Heaven forbid that it were at the expense of thine own life; and that, too, taken by the too zealous hands of Macfarlanes.”
“Fear not for me,” replied Angus, somewhat faintly, “I was but stunned by the blow; and he that gave it me would have been well excused if he had given me a death-wound, if I could have been justly suspected of traitorie to my chief; and well I wot the bare suspicion of such villainy is wound enough to me.”
“Nay, nay, Angus,” said Macfarlane; “you must not think so deeply of this accident. The judgment was necessarily as sudden as the action, and no wonder that it was faulty. But, how came this stray man to be patrolling about? Are we betrayed or discovered, think ye?”
“I would fain trust that we are not,” replied Angus. “As we watched, we saw one man leave the bothy to go out and spy around their post, as we guessed; but, as we afterwards saw a man come in again, we took him to be the same, when, I’ll warrant me, he has been the fellow whom the first man went out to relieve. But, if we were deceived, the fault is luckily cured now, for this is doubtless the very man who”——
“Aye,” said the chief interrupting him; “the very man, indeed, who would have certainly taken my life, had it not been for thine alert and timely aid. What do I not owe thee, my trusty Angus! But stay; let him sit down and rest for a brief space, till he recovers his strength, and then, if I mistake not, we shall bloodily revenge his passing injury.”
They now again moved forward, with much circumspection, until they at length began to perceive a distant light, which occasionally twinkled in advance of them. As they proceeded, the light became broader, though it was still broken by the intervention of the thick-set stems of the forest. But after groping their way onwards with redoubled care for some hundred yards farther, it burst forth fully and steadily on their eyes, as the trees ceased suddenly, and they found themselves close to the very edge of the open hollow described by Angus, and in the middle of the herdsmen who had been left by him as spies. After using their eyes very earnestly and intently for a little time, they could now perceive the surface of the shallow pool, which lay in the still shadow, in the centre of the bottom below them, and they could dimly descry the dusky mass of cattle lying crowded together around it. As the Macfarlanes stood peering into the obscurity, a low and melancholy voice of complaint would every now and then burst from some individual beast, reminiscent of the rich Loch Lomond pasture from which it had been driven, and bitterly sensible of the sad change of fortunes which a few hours had brought to it. The figures of the four watchmen were as yet invisible; but the whole face of the opposite knoll being free from wood, the door of the hunting bothy was clearly defined, by the bickering blaze of faggots that burned in the middle of the floor within, distinctly displaying the sentinel as he walked to and fro across the field of its light. The thick wooding of the forest that encircled this natural opening came climbing up the rear of the knoll until its tall pines clustered over the back of the bothy itself, and the existence of high grounds rising with considerable abruptness at no great distance, if not previously known, could only have been guessed at by the greater density of the shade which prevailed over everything that was beneath the lofty horizon, the limits of which were easily distinguished by the partial gleam that proceeded from the sky above it. There the clouds were now every moment growing thinner and thinner, as the driving rack skimmed across the face of heaven with a velocity that proclaimed an approaching hurricane.
In obedience to the orders already given to them by their chief, the Macfarlanes retreated a few steps into the thick part of the skirting forest, the dark foliage of which arose everywhere around this naturally open space, and beneath its impenetrable concealment they made a silent movement to right and left, during which they posted single men at equal distances from each other, until they had completely surrounded the hollow, the bothy, and the whole party of Lochaber men, together with their booty. This manœuvre was no sooner silently and successfully executed, than four choice young herdsmen, remarkable for their daring courage as well as for their strength and agility, were selected by Angus. These had well and accurately noted the respective spots where each of the Lochaber watchmen had lain down, and after some consultation, each had one of them assigned to him as his own peculiar object of attack. Having gone around the edge of the wood till each man was opposite to his slumbering enemy, they glided down the sloping edges of the hollow, armed with their dirks alone, and they crept on their bellies towards the bottom, drawing themselves like snakes silently and imperceptibly through the long heather. Full time was to be allowed for each man to reach his prey; and although the period was not in reality very long, yet you will easily believe that it passed over the heads of the Macfarlanes with a degree of anxiety that made it appear long enough. The moment the four herdsmen began to descend into the deep shadow which filled the sides of the hollow, their figures were entirely lost to the view of those who were stationed within the skirt of the surrounding forest. Every heart beat with agonising suspense. The smallest accident might ruin all. An occasional prolonged moan was heard to come from some of the cattle, and all felt persuaded, however contrary it might be to reason, that each succeeding recurrence of it must awaken the slumberers. But at length, whether from the operation of some peculiar instinct, or from some remarkable sense of smell which these creatures have occasionally proved that they possess, it happened that they really did become sensible of the approach of some of those who were wont to attend on them, I know not; but all of a sudden some ten or a dozen of them sprang up to their legs, and changed their long low moan into that sharp and piercing rout into which it is frequently known to graduate.
“Look out! look out there!” cried one of the Lochaber watchmen in Gaelic, and half raising himself as he spoke.
“Look out!” cried one of the others laughing, “I’m thinking that I would need the blazing eyes of the devil himself to be able to look at anything here.”
“What’s the matter?” shouted the sentinel at the door of the bothy; and as he said so, he halted in the midst of his walk, and bent his body forward in all directions in his eagerness to descry the cause of the alarm.
“Tut, nothing,” replied another of the watchmen, “all’s well, I warrant me.”
“Aye, aye,” said another, “we’re safe enough from all surprise this night; for, as Archy says, it would need the fiery e’en of the red de’il himself to grope a way through the forest in such darkness as this.”
“It’s dark enough to confound an owl or a bat, indeed,” said the watchman who first spoke, “but mine are eyes that can note a buck on Ben Nevis’ side of an autumn morning a good hour before the sun hath touched his storm-worn top; and, by St. Colm, I swear I saw some dark-looking thing glide over the lip of the bank yonder.”
“It must have been a dark-looking thing, indeed, to have been visible there,” replied his comrade; “but if it were not fancy, it must have been a fox or a badger.”
“Be it what it might,” replied the man, “I swear I saw the back of the creature as it came creeping over the round of the bank.”
“What, think ye, makes the’ cattle rout so strangely?” demanded the sentinel.
“That