The Men of the Moss-Hags Part 41

"It was the little farm of Esconquhan, and only old Sandy Gillespie and his wife were at home--the lads no doubt being at the conventicle, or it may be among those who had fought with us in the yard of the Caldons, and now lay quiet enough down in the copsewood at the loch foot.

"Sandy Gillespie of Esconquhan was a shrewd old fox enough, and answered all Douglas's questions with great apparent readiness.

"'Hae you a Bible?' asked the Colonel.

"'Aye,' said Sandy, 'but it's gye and stoury. Reek it doon, guid wife! I misdoot I dinna read it as often as I should--aiblins like yoursel', Colonel.'

"Very biddably, the wife reached it down out of the little black hole over the mantelshelf, and the Colonel laughed.

"'It is indeed brave and dusty. Man, I see you are no' a right Whig. I doubt that bit book disna get hard wark!'

"Douglas's refreshment had made him more easy to deal with.

"'Nevertheless,' he continued, 'fettle on your blue bonnet and put us on the road to Bongill, at the loch-head. For there is a great Whigamore there of the name of Macmillan and he will no' get aff so easy. I warrant _his_ Bible is well-thumbed!'

"'I canna rin wi' ye on siccan a nicht, and deed the road's no' canny.

But you red-coats fear neither G.o.d nor deil!' said Sandy Gillespie readily.

"'Out on you, gangrel. Gin ye canna rin ye shall ride. Pu' the auld wretch up ahint ye,' said Douglas, ready to be angry as soon as he was crossed, like all men in liquor.

"And so we went over the hillside very carefully--such a road as beast was never set to gang on before.

"'Keep doon the swearin' as muckle ye can,' ordered Sergeant Murphy.

'Lord, Lord, but this is heart-breaking!'

"Sandy Gillespie, canny man, tried to dissuade him from going to Bongill that night. Which only made Douglas the more determined, thinking there was something or some-body that he might light on there, and so get great credit to himself.

"'Gin the road be as dour, crooked, and coa.r.s.e as the Cameronian's road to heaven, I'll gang that road this night!' said Lag, who was pleased with the death of the six Whigs at the Caldons--though, as it might be, vexed that he had not been at the shooting himself.

"We were no more than clear of the loch-side path, when Douglas bade old Sandy tune his pipes to help the men along the easier road with a song.

"'A Whig's sang or a King's-man's sang?' asked the auld tod blythely.

"'Hoot, a Cavalier's song--what need hae we to tak' the Book here!'

cried Douglas loudly.

"'More need than inclination!' said Claverhouse scornfully, who was now riding beside them.

"Sandy Gillespie, who was an exceedingly far-seeing old worthy, pretended that he was loth to sing, whereat Douglas ordered him with an oath to sing upon peril of his life.

"So the old man struck up in a high piping voice, but none so ill in tune:

'Our thistles flourished fresh and fair, And bonny bloomed our roses, But Whigs cam' like a frost in June, And withered a' oor posies.'

"As he went on the old man's voice grew louder, and in a little, half the command was cantily shouting the song, which indeed goes very well to march to.

"'And there's Bongill,' cried Sandy, suddenly stopping and dropping off his horse, 'an' guid e'en to ye!'

"And with that the old fellow slid off among the brush-wood and copse, and we saw no more of him--which perhaps was as well for him.

"When we went into the little house of Bongill, we found an open door both back and front. Peats were blazing on the hearth. Great dishes of porridge sat on a table. Chairs and stools were overturned, and Bibles and Testaments lay everywhere.

"'Curse the old dog. He has sung them a' to the hill,' cried Douglas.

'Have him out and shoot him.'

"But Sandy was not to be seen. Only from the hillside, a voice--the same that had sung, 'Awa, Whigs, awa,' gave us 'Bonny Davie Leslie'; and then cried in mockery three times 'Good-night!'

"So the night being pit mirk and the hill unknown, we took up our abode at Bongill till the morning. Sitting in the hole of the peat stack we found a strange object, a crazy natural, shapeless and ill-looking.

"But some of the men who had seen his mother, knew him for the idiot son of Corp-licht Kate, the Informer, of the Shiel of the Star. Douglas questioned him, for sometimes these naturals have much shrewd wit.

"'How came ye to be here?'

"'Weel, ye see the way o't is this----'

"'Make a short story of it, if ye dinna want a bit o' lead through ye.'

"'A blaw of tobacco wad fit Gash Gibbie better--grand man in the reid coatie!' said the natural, with a show of cunning. 'I cam' to the Bongill i' the gloamin', an' faith the mistress would hae gien me a bed, but there was a horse in it already!'

"So being able to make nothing of him, Douglas let him go back to his dry peat coom.

"The next morning was bright and bonny as the others had been, for the autumn of this year was most favourable to our purpose--by the blessing o' the deil as Lag used to say in his cups, so that the track along the side of Curleywee to Loch Dee was dry as a bone. When we came to the ford of the Cooran, we saw a party coming down to meet us with prisoners riding in the midst. There was an old man with his feet tied together under the horse's belly. He swayed from side to side so that two troopers had to help him, one either side, to keep his seat. This they did, roughly enough. The other prisoner was a young la.s.s with a still, sweet face, but with something commanding about it also--saving your presence, sir. She was indeed a picture and my heart was wae for her when some one cried out:

"'Mardrochat has done it to richts this time. He has gotten the auld tod o' the Duchrae, Anton Lennox, and his bonny dochter at the same catch.

That will be no less than a hundred reward, sterling money!'

"Whereat Douglas cursed and said that a hundred was too much for any renegade dog such as Cannon of Mardrochat to handle, and that he could a.s.suredly dock him of the half of it.

"So that day we marched to New Galloway, and the next to Minnyhive on the road by the Enterkin to Edinburgh."

This is the end of the Toskrie Tam's story as he told it to me in the garden house of Afton.

CHAPTER XLVII.

THE GALLOWAY FLAIL.

When Wat and I found the cave empty, immediately we began to search the hill for traces of the lost ones. For some time we searched in vain. But a little to the right of the entrance of the cave the whole was made plain to us. Here we found the bent and heather trampled, and abundant stains of recent blood, as though one had been slain there and the body carried away. Also I found a silken snood and the colour of it was blue.

It was not the hue, for that is worn by most of the maids of Scotland; but when I took it to me, I knew as certainly as though I had seen it there, that it had bound about the hair of Maisie Lennox. Though when Wat asked of me (who, being a lover might have known better) how I knew it for hers, I could not find words to tell him. But it is true that all the same, know it I did.

So we followed down the trail, finding now a shred of cleading and again the broken bits of a tobacco pipe such as soldiers use, small and black, till in our search we had rounded the hill that looks into the valley of the Cooran. Here at the crossing of the burn, where it was smallest, we found Anton Lennox's broad blue bonnet.

It was enough. Soon we were scouring the hilltops as fast as our legs could move under us. We travelled southward, keeping ever a keen watch, and twice during the day we caught sight of troops of dragoons, moving slowly over the heather and picking their way among the hags, quartering the land for the sport of man-catching as they went. Once they raised, as it had been a poor maukin, a young lad that ran from them. And we could see the soldiers running their horses and firing off white pluffs of powder. It was a long time ere the musket-cracks came to us, which must have sounded so near and terrible to the poor fugitive. But they hit him not, and for that time at least he wan off scot free. So presently we saw them come back, jeered at by their comrades, like dogs that have missed the quarry and slink home with their tails between their legs.

But neither one of our poor captives was among them. So we held fast and snell to the eastward, pa.s.sing along the skirts of the Millyea, and keeping to the heights above the track which runs from the Glenkens to the Water of Cree. It was near to the infall of the road from Loch Dee that we first gat sight of those we sought. It was not a large company which had them in charge, and they marched not at all orderly. So that we judged it to be either one of the Annandale levies of the Johnstone, or Lag's Dumfries troop of renegades.