"The h.e.l.l take you," he girned through clenched teeth, and his knife left his hip. "Ye'll lick where that lay, McKelvie, ye--ye--maker of meats for sailors," and the sweat rolled off his brow, and his voice was a skirl of rage.

McKelvie grabbed a horse-pistol from among his kegs.

"Ye hound, I'll put a hole in ye that will be hurrying the gaugers tae fill wi' siller," and as quick as light he levelled the pistol and drew the trigger. The room was filled with brimstone smoke that gripped the back of the throat, but Dol Beag was unhurt, and creeping like a powerful beast on his enemy. (The heavy bullet had smashed through the eight-day clock.) McKelvie was retreating warily to his barrels again, and I wondered if he had another pistol, when Dan laid his hand on Dol Beag.

"Stop a minute," said he; "there's some talk due to me before ye kill McKelvie."

"Ay, ay, wan at a time, McBride; I'll be feenishing the stickin' o'

this pig before I will start on you, and you can be countin' your b.a.s.t.a.r.ds again," and with that he whipped round on Dan like an eel with his dirk hand high. But a spring took Dan clear, and before Dol Beag could follow, Dan had him in the air spitting like a cat.

"Ashes to ashes," says he, "dhust to dhust," says he, in a thick blind rage, and hurled Dol smash between the stone jambs to the back of the fire.

I saw Dol Rob Beag's neck take the corner of the jamb, and heard the wrench, and then the singeing smell started, and I pulled him out from the fire and the Skye man flung a stoup of water on him.

"Give him the whisky quick," cried swart Robin McKelvie; "put it down his throat," but Dol Beag lay still.

A young man at the door--the same exciseman, Gilchrist, that trotted at Mirren Stuart's coat-tails--cried in a thin voice, "Christ, he's deid; ye'll swing for this, Dan McBride," and disappeared in the night. With that the sailors made for the door, driven by that fear of the law with the long arm and the ruthless grasp; but Dan stood for a while looking on his handiwork in dour silence.

"He brought it on himself, Hamish," says he; "but, man, I'm sorry for his wife's sake."

"Out, man, out," I cried at him; "there's nae time for sorrow," and there came the clop-clop of a galloping horse on the frozen road, and Ronny McKinnon flung himself among us.

"The back door, d.a.m.nation, the back door," he cried, and pushed Dan before him. "Will ye wait till that wasp's bink is buzzin' aboot yer lugs?"

We followed McKinnon through the kitchen and into the yard behind the inn, and a great fear came on me, for the yard was overhung with a bush-covered precipice, and the long icicles glittering, and there was only the track round to the main road open.

"We're trapped, Dan; we're trapped."

"Trapped nane. Follow me, ye gomeril; there's a track up the broo,"

whispered McKinnon, and swung himself among the lowest of the bushes, and we followed.

"I ken the very branches to put my hand on," says he, "and where every stane is, for many's the night I ran the cutter for the auld wives."

We were half-way up before Dan spoke.

"I never kilt a man before," says he in a low whisper.

"Ye did weel for a beginner," says that wild young sea-hawk. "n.o.body will be blaming ye for botching the work." And as we struggled up he hissed a fierce sea oath at me, when my clumsier boot dislodged an icicle that tinkled like breaking gla.s.s in the yard below us.

"On, man, on," he whispered. "Ye'll need a' your start, for the gang will hunt ye doon like a mad dog."

"Fareweel, Hamish," says Dan, and put his hand to mine on the cliff head. "I'll harrow my ain ploughing."

"Go on, man, go on," I cried; "they're coming," for lights were flashing on the road, and loud voices raised. We had gained a bare half-mile on the cliff face, for the road up was "round about," and Ronny was impatient.

"Och, will ye wait for the hangman's rope?" in a fierce whisper below his breath. "There's a hidie-hole I ken, but little good it'll dae ye when the hitch is on your thrapple." And we started the long race to the hills, picking out the patches behind the d.y.k.es where the ground was bare.

[1] Lag 'a bheithe=the hollow of the birch.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BLAZING WHINS.

McKinnon was first in that long race and I next to him, for Dan would not let me out of his sight lest I should lag behind and get rough handling, although indeed, except the gaugers would yelp questions at me which I might not find easy to answer, there was little I had to fear, but it was always in Dan's mind that he had the charge of me.

The land was cultivated on a stey[1] face of maybe a half-mile before the hill common started, and over the common (where in the summer the cattle and hens were taken) the heather was patchy with bog hay, and short crisp turf in places. It was this wrought land I feared most, for the snow was not swept in wreaths, leaving darker patches, but lay like a white napkin over the land, and a black object could be seen from a great distance. But there was a belting of beech-trees and Scots firs marching two farms; and coorieing in sheuchs, where the ice crinkled in metallic splinters under our feet, we crawled to the belting, and were able to stand upright again, at which I breathed a sigh of relief, for my back had a pain like a band of hot iron with the long bending. We scrambled among the trees, and lay a moment, for there was a roughness of bushes and briars, and the snow had been blown off the branches, so there was little likelihood of our being seen. We lay breathing hard and peering through the bushes for signs of pursuit (for the exciseman who cried the news at Finlay Stuart's, not knowing his listener, would have roused his pack by this time), and that Rob Beag was in their pay secretly there was now little doubt. It would be short shrift for Dan if he were caught. Maybe two minutes we lay, and I could have counted every beat of my heart, as it rose with a great thud against my chest, and I felt the blood throb in my head like a prisoner dashing against his cell. The noise of a fall of snow from the fir branches seemed loud as thunder, although we must have been quiet enough, for I mind me of the rabbits loping from the burrows daintily, and sitting up very boldly, almost under reach of a shepherd's crook from me.

"They will have taken roun' the road," says Ronny; "they'll be on us before we see them if we lie here."

On we went in single file in the belting. Briars swung back and cut me across the face, branches tore at us in pa.s.sing all unheeded, and once my leg, to the knee, sunk into a hole and threw me bodily; but I pulled myself out, and was lame for six steps maybe, and forgot about it.

When we were half-way to the hill common there came sharp and clear through the night the neigh of a horse.

"The doited fules," cries Ronny. "They've ta'en the horses to ride a man doon among the hills."

"Let me once win the peat bink," says Dan, "and I'll wander the devil himsel'." And from the ring in his voice I kent his dark mood had pa.s.sed, and waited to see him take the lead; but no, he herded me from behind, but cheerily now. We had crossed a high road, and entered the belting of trees again, and along this road the gangers would come, and our spoor was written plain.

"There will be the collieshangie when they see our marks in the snaw, but they'll founder their horses on the brae and ill-use time tae nae purpose, if just we get ower the common."

From the high ground we could see the road for half a mile and the hunters in full cry, some on horseback and some afoot.

"Horse and foot," says Dan at my ear. "A grim chase, Hamish. I wish ye had left me, lad."

A terrible curse from Ronny made me think our flank was already turned.

"The devil blast them. The whuns, I clean forgot the whuns," and he called on the Almighty to blast and destroy every whin-bush that ever grew.

Amidst the torrent of oaths that buzzed around me I remembered hearing of the whin planting. In these days keep for beasts was scarce, and the crofters would be cutting green whins, and pounding them between flat stones and feeding cattle and horse with them. Indeed, to this day you'll see the flat stone yet at many a byre-end, although it is never used now except maybe to set a boyne on on washing days; but the poor cow beasts were terribly fond of the whins, and they'll tell you yet, the old folks, that when they were herding in their young days, when the beasts got scattered, they would take a whin bush and light it to windward, and let the whin smoke drift down the wind, and the beasts would come running, for they liked the charred whins with the sap still in the jags. Here and there they planted whins, for at one time they had to go all the way to the castle for them, and on one side the common was a great dense bank of them, thick as corn, and well grown.

"They'll be round us like collies round a marrow bane," said Ronny, and as he spoke there was a shout from the highroad, and Dan laughed.

"This is where the kirn starts," and looking over my shoulder as I ran I saw the hors.e.m.e.n spread out like a fan (on either side the belting) where we crossed the road, and the men on foot were on our heels.

They knew of the bank of whins we must struggle through, and relied on their horses' speed to take them round the planting and catch us coming out while the men on foot harried our rear. It was 'twixt devil and deep sea, and the smuggler cursed himself for leading us into the clove hitch.

Between us and the whins was a burn with steep earthy banks, and too wide and deep to risk horses over. So the hors.e.m.e.n on our left made for a slap[2] where a rough peat-track crossed the burn, but those on our right kept straight on, like the road to Imachar. At the lower end of the whins the burn was shallower and the banks low.

We flung across the stream, carrying down an avalanche of loose earth and stones after us, and breenged into the maze of p.r.i.c.kly bushes, winding through those that the snow had been blown off. But mostly the bushes were dry and bare of snow, and this indeed proved our safety.

We were nearly through the clumps when the hors.e.m.e.n on our right crossed the burn with a great floundering and splashing, and those on our left came galloping over the peat-track, and the first horseman galloped past us, so close that I heard the squeak of the saddle leather. We were crouched in a wee burn winding among the bushes; for they grew strongly on either side, and left a little tunnel which one could creep through without much hindrance, and as the riders drove their unwilling beasts among the whins we crawled upwards like cats.

While the men on foot beat for us, and the hors.e.m.e.n kept wary eyes for a movement to betray us, we crept from the whins and crawled like adders belly flat up the little stream, over which dry bracken still hung and straggling whin bushes, like soldiers marching away from the main body. We had crawled maybe fifty yards, when McKinnon turned his face to me, and the blood was drying on his cheeks and brow where the whins had marked him.

"Stop," his lips only moved; and I stopped and turned to Dan, for he still had the rear-guard.

The burn had worn out a round hole under our bank, and we crawled in and lay there, and never, never will I forget the cold of that pool and the streak of light above us, for we lay in a brook that a sheep could walk over, and indeed its very narrowness was our safety, for it surely had been watched else. And while we lay in the frozen cold of the pool, the water tinkled and gurgled and laughed, and went plout-plout at my knees, as though it was a hot summer day and we were stooping to drink.

"We must just lie here like rats," whispered the smuggler, and I held my chin to stop the chattering of my teeth, "for this burn gets narrower than a sheep drain. We must just steep in the water and think of the whisky."

We could hear the swishing among the whins, and the shouts of the rabble behind us, and the clatter of horses' hoofs on the shingle of the burn, and the splashing.