"Ay, faith! and a splendid mark for a single ball at a range of forty yards or so; but I am surprised to find it here in a cork forest."
"It must have come down from the Sierra de Montanches, for there, and among the high mountains of Guadalupe, many thousands of gallant deer and the dark brown roe-buck rove about in freedom."
Their attention was now attracted by a strange noise, which seemed to approach them in front: it was a series of sounds, in tone something between the snorting growl of some wild animal and the squeaking of young swine. Ronald, who had never heard such noises before, was very much surprised, and kept his hand on the hilt of his sword; but poor Evan's nerves were sadly discomposed, and he felt every hair on his scalp bristling under his bonnet, as the dismal remembrance of the many awful beings who peopled the Coirnan Taischatrin, and every thicket and corrie about Lochisla, rushed upon his mind. All the stories he had heard of the dreadful water-horse that dwelt in the castle loch, (and which his father the piper beheld one clear moonlight night floating on the surface of the placid water, as he was returning from a dredgie), of the little fairies who lived under the green holms of Corrie-avon, and the yet more terrible white woman who haunted the black muir of Strathonan and howled to the wind the live-long night, all crowded horribly upon his memory, and the perspiration burst forth from every pore, as something like a legion of flying devils swept tumultuously past them, and plunging into the underwood disappeared, squeaking, growling, and tearing the bushes to fragments in their wild career.
"Pedro! What are all these, in the devil's name!" cried Ronald, starting back and half unsheathing his weapon.
"Only a herd of wild swine, senor," replied Pedro with a laugh. "Demonios! one fellow has given a stroke with his tusk in passing, which I little like."
"'Twas only a drove of wild pigs," said Ronald. "Cheer up, Evan; surely you were not frightened? Yet you seem very pale in the moonlight."
"Frightened, said ye, sir?" replied, or rather asked, Evan indignantly, but feeling considerably re-assured the while; "frightened! the deil a bit, sir. But I never got sic a start in a' my born days syne the nicht the howlet gied me a flaff wi' its wing, when we took Maister Macquirk ower to the ruins on the Kirk-inch. Ye'll mind o'd, sir: he was living wi' the auld laird for a day or twa at the tower, and we rowed him ower the loch in the boat, to gie a look o' the bonnie ruins in the moonlicht."
"Macquirk!" reiterated Ronald, the name recalling a disagreeable passage in his father's letter.
"Ay, sir, Maister Macquirk,—a pleasant smooth-spoken gentleman, as a' Edinburgh writer-folk are. Eh! God be wi' us, sir! what's this noo? Mair wild pigs, I declare!" cried he in considerable trepidation.
"Pshaw! Evan. Your father, old Donald, has made a complete old wife of you, by his horrible legends and stories."