"I lifted a snipe o' a man, and I flung him the back of the fire. What is there in that to be running from?
"If the man has freens, I'll meet them a' wherever they like; but this running sticks in my gizzard. It's just ain brother tae caul' fear," and we marched on in grim silence.
On the mountains my feet were almost without feeling at all with the cold, and my clothes sticking to my shoulders with sweat; and on the last of the hills McKinnon clapped like a startled hare.
"Look at yon," he whispered; "they're to win'ward o' us after a'."
Far below us a little light flickered and blinked on the hillside, and we watched it, hardly breathing, and again I heard my heart begin to pound.
After some wee while of watching, Dan grunted—
"Umph!" says he. "Ye see droll things in the hills when ye're rinnin' for dear life. Yon's just Tchonie Handy Ishable and his lantern."
"I never would be believing that story," said Ronny.
"Man, if I had the time I would get his secret this night," says Dan. "Ye see, Hamish, yon's an old man down yonder, and they'll be saying he pays the Duke's rent in the big money. They've the story of how he found a hoard o' it among the hills; and it's likely enough, for many's the bold stark lad took to the Southern Seas from these glens. Och, an' I ken folk mysel' that found an iron pot o' doubloons in the peat bink; but aul' Tchonie, he just takes what he will be needin', and he takes it at night when the folks are abed. They used to be following him, but he was skilly among the rocks, and they would maybe come on his lantern sitting lighted, and once they found a dagger stuck at the entrance to a cave to keep the wee folk from shuttin' it when a man was inside; but they were never able to get the secret, for Tchonie Handy Ishable would be sittin' over his peat fire when the lads came back in the mornin'."
At the screich o' day we came from Glen Chalmadale into the thatched village of Loch Ranza. At a house some way back from the others McKinnon stopped us.