“They are Lochaber men, sure enough,” replied the man.
“Pshaw! I never doubted that,” said Macfarlane impatiently; “but, quick! tell me whither you have tracked them. We have no time to lose.”
“I’m thinking you may take your own leisure, Macfarlane,” replied the man, “for I’m in the belief that they are lodged for the best part of this night, tethered as they are with the tired legs of the beasts.” And so he went on to explain that they had been traced into what was then one of the thickest parts of the forest, to a spot lying between Loch Sloy and what is now the wide moss of the Caoran, stretching south-east from Ben Laoidh.
“Then they cannot be far distant from the bothy of the lochan, where I slept when we last hunted in that quarter?” said the chief.
“Sure enough, you have guessed it, Macfarlane,” replied the man, “sure enough they are there, and Angus and Parlane, and the rest, are watching them. By all appearance there’s a strong party of the limmers, and I’ll warrant me they keep a good guard.”
“Let them guard as they may, our cattle are our own again,” said the chief, with a laugh of anticipated triumph; “Saint Mary! but we’ll make these gentlemen of Lochaber pay for their incivility, and for the unwilling tramp they have given both to us and to our beasts! Not a man of them shall escape to tell the tale!”
A general exclamation burst from his followers. “Not a man of them!” was echoed around, and they besought Macfarlane to lead them instantly to the slaughter.
“No!” replied he sternly, “I have said, and I now swear by the roof-tree of my fathers, and by the graves where they rest, that not a man of these vermin shall escape! and Macfarlane has never yet said, for weal or for woe, what he did not make good to the very letter. But no advantage must be lost by rashness. Every precaution must be taken coolly and deliberately, so that not a man of them may ever return to parent, to wife, or to child. Lochaber shall wail for them from one end of it to the other, and the men of that country shall pause long before they again attempt to lay hand even on a cat belonging to Macfarlane.”
Having thus checked their impatience, he marched them slowly onwards, without noise, till he discovered a thicket by the side of a brook, where, sheltered and concealed by an overhanging bank, his men could rest and refresh themselves without being observed, and there he patiently halted to wait for the night, and for further intelligence.
Impenetrable darkness had settled over the forest, and the Macfarlanes had sat long in silence, listening eagerly to catch the distant but welcome sound of the lowing of the cattle, that came on their ears faintly at intervals, and assured them that they were now within a short march of their enemies, when the cracking of the withered branches of the firs at some distance ahead of them made them stand to their arms and look sharply out from their ambush. Human footsteps were evidently heard approaching. Not a word was uttered by those in the thicket, but every eye that peered from it was steadily fixed on a natural break among the trees growing on a bank, that rose with a gentle slope immediately in front of their position, where the obscurity being less absolutely impervious, they might at least be enabled to see something like the form of any object that came, however imperfectly it might be defined. The sounds slowly advanced, till at length one human figure only appeared on the knoll that crowned the bank. It stood for some moments, as if scrutinising every bush that grew in the hollow below. It moved—and then it seemed to stop, as if in hesitation. Macfarlane’s henchman raised his arquebuse, and proceeded to light a match for its lock. The click of the flint and steel made the figure start.