ly to him. If he had a few of the Highland faults he did
not lack any of the virtues of his race.

Shortly we were on our way once more, and were fortunate enough before
night to fall in with Cluny and his clan, who having heard of our reverse
had turned about and were falling back to Badenoch. At Trotternich we
found a temporary refuge at the home of a surgeon who was distantly
related to the Macdonald, but at the end of a fortnight were driven away
by the approach of a troop of Wolfe's regiment.

The course of our wanderings I think it not needful to detail at length.
For months we were forever on the move. From one hiding-place to another
the redcoats and their clan allies drove us. No sooner were we fairly
concealed than out we were routed. Many a weary hundred miles we tramped
over the bleak mountains white with snow. Weariness walked with us by day,
and cold and hunger lay down with us at night. Occasionally we slept in
sheilings (sheep-huts), but usually in caves or under the open sky. Were
we in great luck, venison and usquebaugh fell to our portion, but more
often our diet was brose (boiling water poured over oatmeal) washed down
by a draught from the mountain burn. Now we would be lurking on the
mainland, now skulking on one of the islands or crossing rough firths in
crazy boats that leaked like a sieve. Many a time it was touch and go with
us, for the dragoons and the Campbells followed the trail like sleuths. We
fugitives had a system of signals by which we warned each other of the
enemy's approach and conveyed to each other the news. That Balmerino,
Kilmarnock, and many another pretty man had been taken we knew, and scores
of us could have guessed shrewdly where the Prince was hiding in the
heather hills.

CHAPTER XI

THE RED HEATHER HILLS

A sullen day, full of chill gusts and drizzle, sinking into a wet misty
night! Three hunted Jacobites, dragging themselves forward drearily, found
the situation one of utter cheerlessness. For myself, misery spoke in
every motion, and to say the same of Creagh and Macdonald is to speak by
the card. Fatigue is not the name for our condition. Fagged out,
dispirited, with legs moving automatically, we still slithered down
cleughs, laboured through dingles and corries, clambered up craggy
mountainsides all slippery with the wet heather, weariness tugging at our
leaden feet like a convict's chain and ball. Our bones ached, our throats
were limekilns, composts of