"To shut out sights and sounds which every where announced the downfall of Albyn, my father plunged into the recesses of the wild forest of Rothiemurchus, but his retreat was not unmarked. A party of king's troops, Hessians I believe, clad in yellow uniform, beheld him from a neighbouring eminence, and despatched a party of ten men, to shoot or destroy him in any way they chose,—Cumberland having doomed to death all who wore the garb of the Celtic race. For nearly an hour these Georgian sleuth-hounds followed upon his track with murderous eagerness and precision, firing at intervals whenever he came in sight. Their fire he returned, and shot dead three with his Highland pistol.
"Dashing on, and threading the mazes of the forest with the rapidity and activity of a true mountaineer, he contrived to baffle his pursuers, and reached what he supposed to be the inmost recesses of the wilderness. There, panting and breathless with exhaustion, he flung himself to rest on the green sward, cursing and deploring the hour when a son of the Gael had to flee from the arm of a stranger, and was hunted like a deer on his native hills by the soldiers of one he deemed a German despot and oppressor.
"He rolled himself up in his plaid, and creeping close under the pine branches, lay listening with intense eagerness when the crash of a bramble or the rustle of leaves should announce that the Hessians were on his track. The night was calm and still. Not a heather-bell or blade of grass was stirring, and the pendent branches of the gloomy and gigantic pines hung down perfectly still and motionless. Not a sound was heard throughout all the immensity of the vast forest, save the hoarse murmurs of the foaming Spey, whose waters came hurrying down from the far-off hills of Badenoch, and swept through the recesses of Rothiemurchus on their course to the Moray Frith. There was no moon shining, but the night was clear and cloudless, and at times the red stars were seen twinkling through the dark foliage of the pines.
"As my father (Evan of Tor-a-muilt,[*] as he was named) lay thus in concealment, he suddenly remembered that he was within the bounds of the place haunted by the terrible spirit of Glenmore and Rothiemurchus,—the lham-dearg, or bloody-hand, who compelled all who crossed his path during his nocturnal rambles to do battle with him, and none were ever known to survive the awful conflict. He would have started up and fled; but remembering that it was equally dangerous to avoid as to seek the company of evil spirits, he resolved to remain where he was, saying over his prayers like a good catholic, and imploring protection from Saint Colm of the Isles. Yet his blood ran cold with terror, perspiration burst forth from every pore, and he covered his head in his plaid to shut out any frightful sight or sound that might invade the stillness of the gloomy wood. He locked his hand in the basket-hilt of his claymore, and lay hearkening so intensely, that he might almost have heard the dew dropping from the leaves.
[*] The Wedders-hill, an eminence at the foot of Loch-Archaig, in Kilmallie, Inverness-shire.
"A loud exclamation in a barbarous language, and one unknown to him, caused him to start up; and the report of musquetry, the crash of shot striking the trees, and the light uniform of a score of Hessians appearing at a short distance, compelled the hunted Highlander again to seek safety in flight. As unrelentingly as ever they pursued, incited by the hope of plunder, and the reward given for every dirk and claymore. The soldiers, to procure Highland weapons, committed a thousand outrages, even in the town of Inverness, and among the mountains tortured by various means the poor peasantry to reveal where their arms were concealed; after which they were either shot or bayoneted.
"'May the curse of Glencoe be upon ye! and may the raven's croak be your only coronach, ye wolves' whelps!' cried he, as he again fled through the wood. 'Better face a Highland bogle than the bayonets of the Hessians, a race as cowardly as they are merciless!'
"He sought the most difficult and devious paths and soon the shouts of the enemy died away behind him in the distance. No sooner did he find himself in safety than his former fears returned, and as he paced slowly along a narrow forest-path, where the branches were locked together overhead, and where only the pale starlight glimmered at times, he beheld before him the figure of a gigantic Highlander. He was moving but a few yards in front, and his form towered up between the trees in dark and shadowy outline. The belted plaid fluttered behind him, and the eagle's wing, with the forbidden badge of James VIII., adorned his bonnet. With long and stately, but noiseless strides, he continued moving before my father, who often hallooed aloud to him to turn or stand, without receiving an answer. The checks of his tartan were red, his white beard streamed about him, and my father at once recognised by it the aged warrior who had presented him with the dirk on the muir of Drummossie.
"'Turn and assist me, if you are a true son of the hills? The blood-hounds of the Hanoverian have been on my skirts the live-long night; and even now they track me like a stricken deer.' My father received no answer to many such exhortations, yet he continued closely to follow the stranger, who always contrived to elude his grasp, and led him a wearisome ramble across the ravines and deep corries, through brawling torrents and intricate dingles, until, enraged at his contemptuous and singular conduct, he drew his claymore.
"'Turn, base coward!' he exclaimed, 'turn; and I will try whether the boss of your target is proof against the strokes of claymore and skene-dhu, or the biodag. Turn, turn; or by my father's bones, I will smite you through the back!'