第55章 THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER:THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEG

Early as day comes in the beginning of July,it was still dark when we reached our destination,a cleft in the head of a great mountain,with a water running through the midst,and upon the one hand a shallow cave in a rock.Birches grew there in a thin,pretty wood,which a little farther on was changed into a wood of pines.The burn was full of trout;the wood of cushat-doves;on the open side of the mountain beyond,whaups would be always whistling,and cuckoos were plentiful.From the mouth of the cleft we looked down upon a part of Mamore,and on the sea-loch that divides that country from Appin;and this from so great a height as made it my continual wonder and pleasure to sit and behold them.

The name of the cleft was the Heugh of Corrynakiegh;and although from its height and being so near upon the sea,it was often beset with clouds,yet it was on the whole a pleasant place,and the five days we lived in it went happily.

We slept in the cave,making our bed of heather bushes which we cut for that purpose,and covering ourselves with Alan's great-coat.There was a low concealed place,in a turning of the glen,where we were so bold as to make fire:so that we could warm ourselves when the clouds set in,and cook hot porridge,and grill the little trouts that we caught with our hands under the stones and overhanging banks of the burn.This was indeed our chief pleasure and business;and not only to save our meal against worse times,but with a rivalry that much amused us,we spent a great part of our days at the water-side,stripped to the waist and groping about or (as they say)guddling for these fish.

The largest we got might have been a quarter of a pound;but they were of good flesh and flavour,and when broiled upon the coals,lacked only a little salt to be delicious.

In any by-time Alan must teach me to use my sword,for my ignorance had much distressed him;and I think besides,as I had sometimes the upper-hand of him in the fishing,he was not sorry to turn to an exercise where he had so much the upper-hand of me.

He made it somewhat more of a pain than need have been,for he stormed at me all through the lessons in a very violent manner of scolding,and would push me so close that I made sure he must run me through the body.I was often tempted to turn tail,but held my ground for all that,and got some profit of my lessons;if it was but to stand on guard with an assured countenance,which is often all that is required.So,though I could never in the least please my master,I was not altogether displeased with myself.

In the meanwhile,you are not to suppose that we neglected our chief business,which was to get away.

"It will be many a long day,"Alan said to me on our first morning,"before the red-coats think upon seeking Corrynakiegh;so now we must get word sent to James,and he must find the siller for us.""And how shall we send that word?"says I."We are here in a desert place,which yet we dare not leave;and unless ye get the fowls of the air to be your messengers,I see not what we shall be able to do.""Ay?"said Alan."Ye're a man of small contrivance,David."Thereupon he fell in a muse,looking in the embers of the fire;and presently,getting a piece of wood,he fashioned it in a cross,the four ends of which he blackened on the coals.Then he looked at me a little shyly.

"Could ye lend me my button?"says he."It seems a strange thing to ask a gift again,but I own I am laith to cut another."I gave him the button;whereupon he strung it on a strip of his great-coat which he had used to bind the cross;and tying in a little sprig of birch and another of fir,he looked upon his work with satisfaction.

"Now,"said he,"there is a little clachan"(what is called a hamlet in the English)"not very far from Corrynakiegh,and it has the name of Koalisnacoan.There there are living many friends of mine whom I could trust with my life,and some that Iam no just so sure of.Ye see,David,there will be money set upon our heads;James himsel'is to set money on them;and as for the Campbells,they would never spare siller where there was a Stewart to be hurt.If it was otherwise,I would go down to Koalisnacoan whatever,and trust my life into these people's hands as lightly as I would trust another with my glove.""But being so?"said I.

"Being so,"said he,"I would as lief they didnae see me.

There's bad folk everywhere,and what's far worse,weak ones.So when it comes dark again,I will steal down into that clachan,and set this that I have been making in the window of a good friend of mine,John Breck Maccoll,a bouman[26]of Appin's."