"Ay, senor, and the place was often enlivened by the presence of the peasant girls of La Nava, who came hither for confession. They are droll dogs, these solitary monks. Many a strange story is current of the white-bearded Padre of San Bartolomi."
"What he who shows the sulphurous spring of Alange?"
"Ay; he is as arrant a knave as we have on this side the pass of Roncesvalles. But the sun is setting now, senor caballero: I see the trees are casting long shadows across the plain towards the eastward."
"Haud ye awee, Pedro. As sure as I live, I hear—I hear the skirlin o' a bag-pipe?"
"A pipe, Evan?" exclaimed Stuart, "a pipe? I trust it is not imagination! By all that's sacred I hear it too!" he added, stooping his ear anxiously to listen. "'Tis playing—what is the air?"
"The 'Haughs o' Cromdale.' O, sir! I ken it weel," replied the Highlander in a thick voice, while his eyes began to glisten.
"Senor officiale," said Pedro, who had been reconnoitring through the vine bushes, "there are British troops moving on the plain,—red uniforms at least."
"Highlanders! Highlanders!" replied Ronald exultingly, as he beheld a long way off a party of kilted soldiers marching across the dusty plain. The setting sun was shining on the polished barrels of their sloped arms, which flashed and gleamed between the trunks of the trees at every step; even the ribbons fluttering from the drones on the piper's shoulders could be discerned, and the heart-stirring strain he was blowing came floating towards them on the fitful wind.
"What troops are these? and where can they have come from? They march towards Merida, and the French are there."
"What regiment they belang to, sir, I dinna care: let that flea stick to the wa'. But they are some o' oor ain folk, that's certain. I see the braw feathered bonnet, the filledh-beg, and the gartered hose. O Maister Stuart! can we no fa' on some plan to win their attention? They are fast leaving us behind; and it's an awfu' thocht to be here, hunted in a hole like a yirded tod lowrie, and yet to see the tartan waving in the sun, and hear the wild skirl of the piob mhor. O'd, sir! my birse is getting up; I feel myself turning wild."