Chapter VI: The Pursuit

The inroads of the Highlanders were generally made upon the Lowlanders, whom they still view as intruders and aliens; but since the proscription of the MacGregors, every man might outrage _them_, under protection of law, and "lift" their cattle, if he could do so; and a knowledge of this increased the wrath and resentment of Rob Roy and his followers as they hastened after the MacRaes; though why people of _that_ name, whose home was in Kintail, should have come so far to molest the MacGregors, no one can explain. In the bright moonlight the pursuers soon reached the place from which the creagh or spoil had been taken, the same where this history opened, and where the widow's son had been so cruelly slain.

There the MacGregor's sleuth-hound paused and howled, where Colin's bonnet and the chanter, with which he had accompanied Oina's song, lay on the heather, and again he uttered a low prolonged howl on snuffing the odour that came from a patch of heath, the darkness of which might make one shudder.

It was the crusted blood of the poor boy's death-wound which still lay there. "Callam, lead the dog across the stream," said Rob; "he must find the scent on the other side; let him but once snuff their footmarks, and then woe to the MacRaes!"

MacAleister, the henchman, dragged the fierce dog, by its leash, across the stream. It was a bloodhound of the oldest and purest breed, being all of a deep tan colour with black spots, about two feet four inches high, with strong limbs, a wide chest, broad savage muzzle, and pendulous upper lip.

Crossing the stream hand in hand, with their pistols in their teeth, to keep the flints and priming dry, the MacGregors reached the opposite bank, while the dog ran to and fro, till he suddenly uttered a growl. He had found a man's bonnet.

"Paul Crubach was right--here is the badge of Seaforth!" said Greumoch MacGregor, tearing a tuft of deer's-grass from the bonnet, and trampling upon it with vindictive hate.

"And there are the cattle-marks," added Rob Roy, who had been scrutinizing the grass and heath by the light of the moon; "cast loose the dog, Callam--the caterans can have gone up the glen but a little way yet."

The henchman let slip the leash, and the hound, without hesitation, placed his nose near the grass, and, uttering from time to time low growls of satisfaction, proceeded up the glen at a trot, which gave Rob and his armed companions, active though they were, some trouble to keep pace with him.

All traces of habitation were soon left behind, as the pursuers and their questing bloodhound penetrated among the dusky mountains, entering on a wild and silent region of sterile magnificence, above which towered the double cone of Ben More.

On they went, through the lengthened expanse of a glen that lay between two chains of barren hills, at the base of which a river, rushing among fragments of detached rock, foaming over precipices and plunging into deep dark pools, swept onward to mingle its waters with the Dochart. The dog went forward unerringly.

The hoof-marks of the hastily-driven cattle were occasionally seen among the ferns, the crushed leaves, the bruised stems and twigs of the wild bushes; but for a time these traces were lost when they entered on a great expanse of deep soft heather, broken only here and there by a pool of boggy water, which shone whitely in the light of the waning moon: it was a tract of vast extent, and all of a dun, dark hue.

Afar off, in the distance, rose the hills of Glenorchy; and now, being somewhat wearied by the long and arduous pursuit, Rob Roy and his men sat down beside one of those great grey stones which stud the Scottish hills and moorlands, marking either the site of a Druid's altar, an old battlefield, or a forgotten warrior's grave. On consulting his watch, Rob found the hour was midnight, and that they had travelled about twenty miles, over a road of unparalleled difficulty.

A dram from Greumoch's hunting-bottle revived them a little, and then MacAleister led the bloodhound in a circuit round the stone to find the scent again. These great tracts of heather are frequently to be met with in Scotland, and concerning them a singular tradition lingers in the Highlands.

It is said that the Pictish race were celebrated for brewing a pleasant beverage from the heather blossom, and that they usually cultivated great tracts of level muir for this purpose, carefully freeing them of stones.

On the extinction of their monarchy, and the fabled extirpation of the whole race by Kenneth II., King of the Scots, after the battle of the Tay, two Picts became his prisoners, a father and his son, who alone knew the _secret_ of manufacturing this beverage.

Urged by promises of liberal reward, continues the tradition, the father consented to reveal it, on condition that first they slew his son, whom a Scottish warrior thereupon shot through the heart with an arrow.

"Now," said the stern Pict, "do your worst; for never will I be prevailed upon to disclose a secret known to myself alone."

A second arrow whistled through his heart, and the secret perished with him.

It was on one of these moorland spots that the MacGregors halted. The eye could detect no living object in the distance, and the wind brought no sound to the ear, as by the great grey stone in the wilderness Rob and his men sat listening intently, and frequently with their ears close to the ground, conversing the while in their native Gaelic, which, though strange in sound and barbarous to English ears, is, like the Welsh, a strong, nervous, and poetical language, expressing the emotions of the human heart almost better than any other in Europe. His followers were beginning to lose heart; and fears that Colin's death might be unavenged and the cattle lost were freely expressed.

"Remember the oath we have sworn, and neither will come to pass," said Rob, with stern confidence. "By the soul of Ciar Mhor, and by all the bones that lie in the Island of the Cell, our swords shall cross theirs before another sunset, or my name is not MacGregor!"

"Four of the cattle are brown beasties of my own," observed Greumoch; "and if they should be lost, and Breadalbane does not see me righted, by St. Colme, I'll bring off the Spanish ram and the eight score of black-faced Galloways that are now in his park at Beallach, though every Campbell in Glenorchy puts his sword to the grindstone for it!"

"And I will back you, Greumoch, though Breadalbane is my own kinsman," said Rob Roy.

"We are Campbells by day, oich! oich!" said Greumoch, in a tone of singularly bitter irony, which drew muttered oaths from his companions; "but by night----"

"We are MacGregors like our fathers, and again the sons of Alpine!" said Rob, starting to his feet. "'S Rioghal mo dhream! Forward, lads! MacAleister shouts to us--the bloodhound has again got the scent."

The chieftain was right--the noble dog had discovered the trail; and once more the pursuit was resumed in a direction due north-west. As day broke, the distant hill-tops became yellow, and the wild moor gradually lightened around them. Rob and his followers had just doffed their bonnets, in reverence to the rising sun--a superstitious act, old as the days of Baal and the Druids--when a fox suddenly crossed their path.

"Shoot, MacAleister, shoot!" exclaimed a dozen voices in an excited manner, for the son of the arrow-maker was the best marksman on the shores of Loch Lomond.

"But the creagh--the caterans!" he urged, while unslinging his long Spanish gun.

"They cannot hear the shot, and, even if they did, the fox must not escape."

MacAleister took aim and fired. Then a cheer of satisfaction burst from the MacGregors, as the fox rolled over, feet uppermost, dead, about two hundred yards off; and the pursuit was resumed with fresh alacrity, as it was then a common Celtic belief, that to meet an armed man, when proceeding on a hostile expedition, portended success; but to have your path crossed by a four-footed animal without killing it, or by a woman without drawing blood from her forehead, ensured defeat and flight.

Roused by the report of the musket from their lair among the green feathery bracken, more than one red roebuck started up and fled towards the desert of Rannoch, on the skirts of which the MacGregors were now entering; and closely following the footsteps of the hound, they drew near the hills that bordered the vast sea of bog and heather.

"Halt!" cried Rob Roy; "do you see that?--it is another omen."

As he spoke, a black carnivorous raven daringly soused down upon a poor little lamb that was cropping a patch of grass near its dam, and, in a second, picked out his eyes. As the lamb bleated loudly, the mountain bird next seized and tore its tongue, but a shot from MacGregor's steel pistol killed them both.

"It foretells good fortune," said he, "and that we shall soon pounce on the MacRaes, even as the raven pounced on the lamb."

Greumoch proposed that they should light a fire of dry heather-root and broil a collop from the dead lamb; but Rob Roy, as he re-loaded and primed his pistol, now detected a faint column of blue smoke that rose at the edge of the moor; and, after breakfasting on a little meal and water, he ordered all to advance, but cautiously, towards it.

"We shall have our collop after we have punished the caterans, Greumoch," said he, good-naturedly. "You remember what the Earl of Mar said after the battle of Inverlochy, when supping cold crowdy out of his own cuaran with the blade of his dagger?"

"'That hunger is ever the best cook.'"

"Yes; so now, lads, forward again; and remember the widow's son."

The appearance of some cattle grazing near the smoke made the unwearied pursuers certain that those they sought were not far off; but, after drawing stealthily nearer, they discovered that the fire was lighted to cook the food of a family of gipsies, or itinerant tinkers, who were about to take to flight on seeing Rob and his armed band approach. On the former calling aloud that they came thither as friends, the eldest of the wanderers turned to hear what their visitors required of them.

MacGregor inquired if they had seen anything of the spoilers.

"They passed us towards the hills, with twenty head of cattle, only two hours ago," replied the gipsy, "and, by the smoke that is now rising from yonder corrie, I am assured that there they have made a halt."

"Good!" said MacGregor, with grim satisfaction. "What is your name, friend?"

"Andrew Gemmil."

"You are a Southland man?"

"Yes," replied the wanderer, doffing his bonnet with reverence, for the aspect and bearing of Roll Roy awed and oppressed him.

"From whence?"

"Moffat-dale. I will show you a track in the hills that will lead you to the corrie unseen."

Rob promised the old gipsy two Scottish crowns, and two silver buttons from his coat, if this service were done. Dividing his band into two, he led one party straight up the face of the hill, on their hands and knees; the other, under Greumoch, guided by Gemmil, the gipsy, made a detour, for the purpose of entering the corrie or deep ravine on another point, and thus cutting off the retreat of the marauders.