The next day’s sun had hardly reddened the eastern sky, so as to exhibit the huge dark mass of Ben Lomond with a sharp and well-defined outline on its glowing surface, when the herdsmen of the Laird of Macfarlane arose and left their huts, with the intention of driving their cattle across the dewy pastures back to the slopes of the mountains. The thick summer mist still hung over the lower grounds; and the men wandered about hallooing to each other whilst employed in actively looking for the animals of which they had the charge. They had left them the previous evening feeding in numerous groups among herbage of the most luxuriant description. They were well aware that it was much too fragrant not to tie them, by the sweetest and securest of all tethers, to the vicinity of those spots where they had been collected in herds; and they were quite sure that the animals never would have left them voluntarily. But all their shouting and all their searching appeared to be unsuccessful, and the more unsuccessful they were likely to be the more were their exertions increased. All was clamour, confusion, and uncertainty, till sunrise had somewhat dispelled the mist that had hitherto rolled its dense and silent waves over the bottom of the valley; and then one herdsman more active and intelligent than the rest, having climbed the mountain that sends forth its root to form the boundary between the enchanting mazes of the beautiful oak and birch-fringed lakes of Ballochan and the long stretch of Loch Lomond’s inland sea, and having looked up Glen Falloch, and far and wide around him to the full extent that his eyes could reach,—
“We are harried!” shouted he in Gaelic to his anxiously inquiring comrades below. “Not a horn of them is to be seen! I can perceive a large herd of deer afar off yonder, clustered together in the open forest glade, but not a horn or hide of cow, ox, quey, or stirk, do I see within all the space that my eyes can light upon; and unless the muckle stone, the Clach-nan-Tairbh, down below there has covered them, as tradition tells us it covered the two wild bulls, when the fury of their battle was said to have been so great as to shake it down from the very craig upon them, our beasts are harried every cloot o’ them!”
“My curses on the catterans that took them then!” exclaimed Angus Macfarlane, the master of the herdsmen—“and my especial curses, too, because they have thus harried them the very night when I chanced to be wandering! But if they are above the surface of the earth we must find them; so come, lads, look about ye sharply.”
Like an eager pack of hounds newly uncoupled, who have been taught by the huntsman’s well-understood voice that a fresh scent is at hand, the herdsmen now went dodging about, looking for the track of those who had so adroitly driven off a creagh so very numerous and so immensely valuable. Long experience and much practice in such matters soon enabled Angus to discover the country towards which the freshest hoof-prints pointed, and in a short time the whole band were in full and hot pursuit of the reavers.
“They are Lochaber men, I’ll warrant me!” said Angus, whose sagacity and acuteness left him seldom mistaken; and guessing shrewdly at the route they would probably take, he resolved to follow them cautiously with his assistants, that he might dog their footsteps and spy out their motions, whilst he sent one back as a messenger to the Laird of Macfarlane, to report to him the daring robbery that had been committed on him.
If you have been able to conceive the calm that settled upon Macfarlane’s mind when the placidity of the previous evening had brought it so much into harmony with all the surrounding objects of nature, that it might almost have been said to have reflected the unruffled image of Loch Lomond itself, you may easily imagine that the intelligence which he now received operated on him as some whirlwind would have done on the peaceful bosom of the lake. The eyes of the dark-browed chief kindled up into a blaze of rage, and shot forth red lightnings, and his soul was lashed into a sudden and furious storm ere the messenger had time to unfold half of his information.
“What! all harried, said you?—Bid the pipers play the gathering! Shout our war-cry of Loch Sloy! We’ll after them with what of our clansmen may be mustered in haste. By the blessed rood, we’ll follow them to Lochaber itself, but we’ll have back our bestial!”
But Macfarlane was not one who allowed his rage to render him incapable of adopting the proper measures for the sure attainment of his object. A numerous party of his clan was speedily assembled, all boiling with the same indignation that excited their chief. Macfarlane himself saw that each man was equipped in the most efficient manner for celerity of movement; and when all were in order, he instantly set forward at their head, taking that direction which was indicated to him by the intelligence which the messenger had brought him.
In their rapid march through the great forest, they threaded its intricacies, partly trusting to their local knowledge, partly to their leader’s judgment of the probable route of the reavers, partly guided by the fresh tracks which they now and then fell in with, and partly by certain signal marks which the wily Angus had from time to time left behind him, by breaking the boughs down in a particular direction. Once or twice they encountered some individual of the party of herdsmen in advance, whom Angus had stationed in their way to give his chief intelligence; and at last, as the sun was fast declining towards the west, another man appeared, who came to meet them in breathless haste.
“Well! what tidings now?” demanded the laird.