rest of Dalness, then by the corries through the Black Mount of
Bredalbane to Glen-urchy. Once on the Brig of Urchy, we were as safe, in
a manner, as on the shores of Loch Finne. On Neill Bane's map this looks
a very simple journey, that a vigorous mountaineer could accomplish
without fatigue in a couple of days if he knew the drove-roads; but it
was a wicked season for such an enterprise, and if the Dame Dubh's tale
was right (as well enough it might be, for the news of Argile's fall
would be round the world in a rumour of wind), every clan among these
valleys and hills would be on the hunting-road to cut down broken men
seeking their way back to the country of MacCailein Mor. Above all was
it a hard task for men who had been starving on a half-meal drammock for
two or three days. I myself felt the hunger gnawing at my inside like
a restless red-hot conscience. My muscles were like iron, and with a
footman's feeding, I could have walked to Inneraora without more than
two or three hours' sleep at a time; but my weakness for food was so
great that the prospect before me was appalling.

It appalled, indeed, the whole of us. Fancy us on barren hills, unable
to venture into the hamlets or townships where we had brought torch and
pike a few days before; unable to borrow or to buy, hazarding no step of
the foot without a look first to this side and then to yon, lest enemies
should be up against us. Is it a wonder that very soon we had the
slouch of the gangrel and the cunning aspect of the thief? But there's
something in gentle blood that always comes out on such an occasion. The
baron-bailie and Neil Campbell, and even the minister, made no ado about
their hunger, though they were suffering keenly from it; only the two
tacksmen kept up a ceaseless grumbling.

M'Iver kept a hunter's ear and eye alert at every step of our progress.
He had a hope that the white hares, whose footprints sometimes showed
among the snow, might run, as I have seen them do at night, within reach
of a cudgel; he kept a constant search for badger-hamlets, for he would
have dug from his sleep that gluttonous fat-haunched rascal who gorges
himself in his own yellow moon-time of harvest. But hare nor badger fell
in our way.

The moon was up, but a veil of grey cloud overspread the heavens and
a frosty haze obscured the country. A clear cold hint at an odour of
spring was already in the air, perhaps the first rumour the bush gets
that the sap must rise.