ches, 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 torr