This was true. I had one over my gorget, or rather part of it; the rest having been rent away in some of my recent scuffles.
"There was a figure before us, on the road. Now, where has it vanished to?"
"Ah! if it should be the Scot," said Gustaf, "and concealed not far from us!"
"In that tree, perhaps."
"Fire your pistol into it."
"Come down, murderer!" cried the host of the Eagle.
"Come down, thou vile Merodeur!" added the young man, as they each cocked a pistol. My heart beat like lightning. It was evident that they spoke at random; but both levelled their pistols, and fired right among the foliage. The balls whitened the branches as they crashed through the leaves, without touching me; I sat still as death, waiting for the next act of this desperate drama, and feeling a violent inclination to let four bullets fly at them in return, from the pistol-barrels concealed in the lock of my sporran.
There was a pause as they reloaded, during which the young man Gustaf wept bitterly.
Some frightful crime was undoubtedly imputed to me! The poor girl whom I had left a few hours before, had been most barbarously murdered, and these men, her lover and her master, had come in pursuit of me; but I felt assured, that to come forth and attempt any explanation with men so excited, and so prejudiced against me, would be recklessly throwing away my life. Her hands held the fragments of a man's ruff, and mine was torn—but by the hands of Tilly's soldiers. Honour then required that, at all risks, I should no longer lurk within earshot of those who imputed to me a crime so terrible, and I was just about to descend when the lover exclaimed furiously—
"I can never return the way we have come! On—yet on—for my heart is on fire!" and, spurring their horses, they galloped away at headlong speed, and were quickly out of sight.