Without another word to me, and after a savage injunction to the men to see I did not escape on peril of their lives, he went off and fetched his lordship. They came running back together as if the greatest event imaginable had happened.
"Ha! Master Wheatman," cried my lord very happily, "this is indeed a sight for sore eyes."
"To be sure," said I, "your lordship's were pretty bad the last time I saw them."
He made no retort, being indeed too excited to notice pin-pricks, but ordered the sergeant to take me to the rear under a strong guard. "Make sure of him!" he cried, and added in a lower tone, as I moved off under the combined pull and push of my captors, "Make sure of it." He then went off to his own place in the line.
The sergeant did not come with us, and I had been tugged nearly to the second hedge before he overtook us. To my astonishment he was carrying my saddle on his head, where, in the dim light, it looked like a gigantic bonnet. He swore at the men for loitering, and on we went to the second hedge. We struck it at a point where there was neither gate nor gap, but the dragoons bashed it down with their carbines and trampled it down with their boots, and so made a way.
Two of the men were through, and I was being hauled through, when there was a spattering of shots from behind. Over the noise a stentorian voice called out "Claymores!" It was the Highland warcry, and, with reverberating yells, the clansmen poured out of the nearer enclosure to attack the dragoons lining the hedge.
The sergeant drew his sword, and, as we raced on again, struck viciously with the flat of it at his men to make them run faster. A queer figure he cut in the moonlight as he raced along, swearing and slashing, with the skirts of the saddle flapping against his lean ribs. At last we got out on a poor road lined with trees and turned south along it. There was urgent need for him to haste now, for Brocton's dragoons had been cut out of their cover and were being pushed back to the hedge we had just left. The sergeant halted a moment to take stock of the situation, and then we hurried on again. Every time he struck a man for lazy running, the man in his turn paid me with punch or kick. After a mile or so, the avenue made an abrupt turn to the east and brought us out on the main road in the rear of the Duke's army.
The moon showed us a little cottage, standing off from the road in a poor plot of ground. The sergeant led the way up to it, turned the cottager and his family out of it into a shed, and set two men without as sentries. He then made the others strip me to the skin and examined every shred of clothing, ripping out the linings and even cutting my boots to pieces. Finding nothing, he flung me the rags to put on again, and then cut the saddle to pieces and searched that. I knew now why William had so nearly lost his vail and Donald had been obliged to steal me another saddle. The sergeant wanted, the letter and papers I had taken from him at the "Ring of Bells." He was so keen that he omitted to pouch any of my belongings, and I retained my money, Donald's watch, and the priceless strip of bloodstained linen. My tuck and pistols were naturally taken from me on my capture.
"Any luck?" I asked quizzingly, when he at last gave over the search.
Too furious or too cautious to reply, he brutally kicked a dragoon whom he caught smiling.