back, they left the gentlemen of our band to retreat by the pends
to the beech-wood, and gave their attention to the main body of our
common townsmen.

We had edged, Splendid and Sir Donald and I, into a bit of green behind
the church, and we held a council of war on our next move.

Three weary men, the rain smirring on our sweating, faces, there we
were! I noticed that a trickle of blood was running down my wrist, and I
felt at the same time a beat at the shoulder that gave the explanation,
and had mind that a fellow in the Athole corps had fired a pistolet
point-blank at me, missing me, as I had thought, by the thickness of my
doublet-sleeve.

"You've got a cut," said Sir Donald. "You have a face like the clay."

"A bit of the skin off," said I, unwilling to vex good company.

"We must take to Eas-a-chosain for it," said Splendid, his eyes flashing
wild upon the scene, the gristle of his red neck throbbing.

Smoke was among the haze of the rain; from the thatch of the town-head
houses the wind brought on us the smell of burning heather and brake and
fir-joist.

"Here's the lamentable end of town Inneraora!" said John, in a doleful
key.

And we ran, the three of us, up the Fisherland burn side to the wood of
Creag Dubh.

CHAPTER X.--THE FLIGHT TO THE FOREST.

We made good speed up the burn-side, through the fields, and into the
finest forest that was (or is to this day, perhaps) in all the wide
Highlands. I speak of Creag Dubh, great land of majestic trees, home
of the red-deer, rich with glades carpeted with the juiciest grass, and
endowed with a cave or two where we knew we were safe of a sanctuary if
it came to the worst, and the Athole men ran at our heels. It welcomed
us from the rumour of battle with a most salving peace. Under the high
fir and oak we walked in a still and scented air, aisles lay about and
deep recesses, the wind sang in the tops and in the vistas of the trees,
so that it minded one of Catholic kirks frequented otherwhere. We sped
up by the quarries and through Eas-a-chosain (that little glen so full
of fondest memorials for all that have loved and wandered), and found
our first resting-place in a cunning little hold on an eminence looking
down on the road that ran from the town to Coillebhraid mines. Below us
the hillside dipped three or four hundred feet in a sharp slant bushed
over with young _darach_ wood; behind us hung a tremendous rock that few
standing upon would think