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 passing 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 passed, 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 horsemen 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 horsemen 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 prickly 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 horsemen 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 horsemen 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.

"They're in there like rabbits in a patch of corn in the harvest," cried one man.

"By God, if I could only get that Ronny McKinnon under my bonny blue hanger," said Gilchrist, the ganger that had the soft side for Mirren Stuart.

"One good prog wid pay for this night's daftness," growled his leader, and again came Gilchrist's voice—

"Was I tae ken McKinnon was ootside Finlay Stuart's and a dozen o' ye in the kitchen."

"Umph," sniffed Ronny, "it's the great company that gathers at Finlays," and indeed Mirren Stuart saved many's the house at that time, for the gangers and excisemen went after her sisters, while old Finlay smiled grimly, and Mirren got hold of the secrets.

"If a man runnin' like that Gilchrist can blurt oot the news and keep runnin', it's maistly truth, but if he stops and begins to walk, and twist his mouth before he speaks, he's makin' lies," said McKinnon, and turned himself in the water.

The searchers were beginning to tire of beating.

"Roast the devil oot." "Ay, gie McBride a taste o' the fire."

"I'm thanking God for a fool," said Dan, "if the whins will just burn, but whins are dour revengefu' bushes."

"Burn," says Ronny—"burn; they'll hiv a bleeze ye'll see for twenty miles—we're bate, Dan."

"Na, na," says Dan. "Wait you, yonder's a twinkle, anither. Man, they'll mak' a bonny lowe, and waste a heap of good keep."

Men were rushing hither and thither with flaming branches, and already, when the breeze freshened, you could hear the roar and crackle. The great lilac flames leapt ten feet in the air, and the night rained stars. The sparks fell above us like fire-flakes, and some came down and sizzled out in our pool.

When the flames were roaring like a hurricane, Dan spoke softly—

"We'll go now."

"Are ye daft?" said Ronny.

"Ye don't ken the effect o' a fire like that," said Dan. "A man must look at it, and see the lowes ploofin' into the sky, and the sparks fleein'. He canna help himsel'. The horses will be needing a lot o' handling too, and the men on the low side'll just hiv tae run tae winward or lie in the burn, for the heat o' whuns is terrible. They'll a' face the flames waitin' till we run oot like bleezin' deevils, and they're sae sure that we will start every moment, they will not lift their eyes for fear they will be missing the sight o' us."

"We must just risk it," said I, "for I'm like to freeze here."

Dan put his head out of our hole and crawled out, and I followed, and Ronny last. We could feel the air warm, and the night was clear as day, and yet the searchers stood gazing at their fire as Dan had said. We crawled flat like snakes, keeping among dark patches as much as we could, till we came to the turf dyke, and still our pursuers tended the fire. Slowly and softly we crossed into heather, and lay for a minute. Then, looking down across the common, Dan threw back his head and laughed in his silent fashion.

"We're among our ain heather now, Hamish," says he. "In an hour we'll be among the peat hags. I've a mind tae whistle them up."

"I've lain long enough in the water, Dan," said I.

"Aweel," says he, "we'll just make McAllan's Locker for it; eh, Ronny?" And again we started to run, zigzagging to the dark bits till we crossed the first rise, and we stood looking back. The whins were all ablaze and the trees in the belting standing out clear, and the little figures still running with the torches.

[1] Steep.

[2] Opening.