A volley of petronels from the bank above Leslie left him no time for further defence or reflection; and with a shout of defiance he leaped his horse boldly into the stream, and, regardless of the bullets which plunged into the water incessantly, exerted every energy to gain the opposite bank, using his hands and knees, half swimming, to relieve the animal of his burden (which was not a light one, the rider being in armour): keeping its dilated nostrils above water, and yielding a little to the current, he ultimately crossed, successfully and securely.
With flattened ears and upraised head, the broad-chested steed breasted gallantly the foaming water, and snorted with satisfaction on feeling the firm ground at the opposite side, where Leslie uttered a shout of triumph as he scrambled up the bank, and thus by one bold effort found himself free.
Oaths and cries of rage resounded among the woods behind, and many a trooper urged his horse towards the brink, but their hearts failed them, and not one dared to cross the deep and rapid Leven, by which their intended victim had been saved and their leader swept away before their eyes. The lieutenant of the king's guard now leisurely examined the knees of his horse and the girths of his saddle; looked to his sword-belt and spur-leathers; recharged his petronels, and glanced at the pouch which contained the pardon of Jane Seton. He then wiped his sword and remounted.
Reflecting that the river was now between him and his enemies, that he was several miles out of the direct road, and that (except the ducking) he was not in the least the worse either of the ride or the combat, he resolved, instead of seeking shelter either at the place of Balfour or the castle of Balgonie, to push onwards to Kinghorn.
The ramparts of this stronghold, which are eighty feet in height, were glimmering in the moonbeams, above the tossing foliage, as he descended into the hollow which lies to the south of it, and then turned westward, little thinking that the ferocious Laird of Clatto, with Dobbie, Tam Trotter, and some fifteen horsemen, in anticipation of such a measure, had long before wheeled off to the right, and were pushing on the spur towards the Kinghorn road to intercept him.
CHAPTER LIII.
THE FIGHT AT INVERTEIL.
"Let us hasten to receive them,
Placing in the foremost ranks,
Those who bear the arquebuses;
Let the horsemen next advance,
With the customary splendour
Of the harness and the lance."—CALDERON.
With a heart divided between emotions of rage and exultation, the fugitive messenger rode towards Kinghorn.
The aspect of the tract of country he crossed is very different now from what it was in those days. Many places that are bare pasture lands were then covered by dense thickets of natural wood; other places, that are now fertile and arable, were covered with broom and whins of such gigantic size that horsemen might have been concealed among them; while all the straths and glens were filled with the water which then flowed through innumerable mosses and marshes. Streams, which were then impassable rivers, have now, by the drainage of the land and other agricultural improvements, shrunk to mere burns or mountain runnels; while those which were then burns and trouting streams, have in many instances totally disappeared; and waters, such as those of the Boathouse bridge in Linlithgowshire and the Eden in Fifeshire, which had ferry-boats plying upon them, are now scarcely deeper or broader than a wayside drain. Thus, when, to save time and the trouble of riding round in search of fords or bridges, the brave Leslie, all heavily armed as he was in Italian plate, boldly swam the winding Loctie and the Ore, near the Spittalcots, he performed two gallant feats, for then those waters foamed in deep, broad currents between torn and rugged banks, with a breadth and force very different from what they exhibit in the present day, even during the fury of a winter speat.